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The Coral Reef: 10 Hours of Relaxing Oceanscapes | BBC Earth
Sound: natural ocean ambience, no music and no narrator.
If you want one reef to leave on all evening, this is it. BBC Earth put out ten hours of coral reef footage with nothing laid over it: no commentary, no score, just fish, coral and the crackle of the water. Made with the ocean filmmakers of OceanX Media, the camera work is patient and steady rather than a dive-vacation montage, and the colors look like water rather than a filter. It also makes a good test of whether you prefer silence or music before trying the scored films further down.
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Sea Forests: 10 Hours of Relaxing Oceanscapes | BBC Earth
Sound: natural ocean ambience, no music and no narrator.
The green counterpart to the coral reef video, and the one to pick when you want green and gold light rather than reef color. Ten hours of kelp forests, seagrass meadows and mangroves from the same BBC Earth series, again with no commentary or background music, so the slow sway of the fronds sets the pace. This footage tends to be calmer than reef footage, with fewer darting fish and more drifting light, which makes it the better of the two for falling asleep to.
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Wild Kelp Forest and Ethereal Music to Relax/Study To | Monterey Bay Aquarium Krill Waves Radio
Sound: ethereal ambient music, no narrator.
The real kelp forest of Monterey Bay, seen from a diver's eye level, rather than the aquarium's famous tank. Monterey Bay Aquarium made this two-hour film for its Krill Waves Radio series, and the cast is pure California kelp: snails, seals, sand dollars, sheephead and schools of fish moving through the stalks. It is not a live cam, so the shots are chosen and steady, and two hours is long enough to cover a study session or a slow evening.
More about Wild Kelp Forest and Ethereal Music to Relax/Study To | Monterey Bay Aquarium Krill Waves Radio4
Vancouver Island Kelp Forests In 4K | 2 Hours of Relaxing Ocean Ambience
Sound: soft relaxing music, no narration.
The cold-water pick. ScubaBC shot this two-hour 4K film over 80 dives around Browning Passage off northern Vancouver Island, and it shows a kelp forest few relaxation channels bother with: towering bull kelp, palm kelp, jellyfish, hooded nudibranchs on the fronds and schools of black and yellowtail rockfish in emerald water. The emerald greens make a welcome change from tropical blue, and every scene comes from one named stretch of coast, so it never feels like a stock-footage reel.
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11 HOURS Stunning 4K Underwater footage + Music | "Tahiti Reef Relaxation" Ambient Nature Film
Sound: ambient music with underwater sound.
Eleven hours of 4K reef footage from the waters around Tahiti, which gives the whole film a clear sense of place instead of a grab bag of stock clips from everywhere. Peter Schneider shot it, and Nature Relaxation Films pairs it with ambient music by Relax Moods, so it suits anyone who finds pure ocean hiss too bare for background viewing. The 4K picture rewards a large screen, where the coral heads and reef fish hold up to a close look.
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4K Stunning Underwater Wonders of the Red Sea - Colorful Coral Reef Inhabitants - 3 HOUR
Sound: underwater sound, with no music credited and no narrator.
The Red Sea entry, filmed in 2021 at Dahab in Egypt, one of the country's best-loved dive towns. Over about three and a half hours of 4K footage you drift along the reef with flame-colored anthias, a sea turtle, a moray eel and lionfish, and the video is chaptered so you can jump straight to the turtle if you have been waiting for it. It is a good choice for anyone who wants reef color without a soundtrack but finds the BBC loops a little too polished.
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11 HOURS Stunning 4K Underwater footage + Music | Nature Relaxation™ Rare & Colorful Sea Life Video
Sound: ambient music over underwater sound.
The most-watched film on this list by a wide margin, with well over 40 million views, and the obvious place to start if you want a reef on the TV all day. It extends Nature Relaxation's Rainbow Reef Relaxation to eleven hours, using footage Peter Schneider shot over several years in French Polynesia, Micronesia, Indonesia and East Timor. The description is frank that many of these reefs no longer look like this because of coral bleaching, which makes the vivid color here bittersweet as well as beautiful.
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3 HOURS of Amazing Colorful Reef Sea Life in HD 1080p (No Music) Tahiti, Raratonga, Indonesia
Sound: underwater sound only, no music.
The no-music cut of Nature Relaxation's Rainbow Reef footage, for anyone who loves those reefs but not the score. It runs three hours in HD rather than 4K, with Peter Schneider's footage from Tahiti, Rarotonga and Indonesia among other Pacific and Asian reefs. It is shorter than the eleven-hour versions, but it is the one to pick when you want that tropical color with nothing but the water behind it.
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11HRS Stunning 4K Underwater footage + Music: RAINBOW REEF 2 - Rare & Colorful Sea Life Ambient Film
Sound: original ambient music over underwater footage.
The sequel to Rainbow Reef, and the pick when you have worn out the first one. Where the Tahiti film stays with one island group, Rainbow Reef 2 gathers some of the world's most colorful reefs into eleven hours of 4K footage, shot mainly by Peter Schneider with extra scenes from Tilo and Yvonne Kühnast, and set to original music by Relax Moods. It makes a lively companion for a long afternoon, at the cost of a score some viewers will find unnecessary.
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Open Ocean: 10 Hours of Relaxing Oceanscapes | BBC Earth
Sound: natural ocean ambience, no music and no narrator.
For the blue water beyond the reef edge. BBC Earth made this ten-hour video with OceanX Media: schools of fish, a nurse shark and long stretches of open blue, with only the sound of the sea behind them. It is the emptiest-feeling video here, in a good way, and the footage repeats after a while, which hardly matters when it is playing in the background.
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Deep Ocean: 10 Hours of Relaxing Oceanscapes | BBC Earth
Sound: natural ocean ambience, no music and no narrator.
The dark end of the series, for when reef color starts to feel too busy. Ten hours of deep-sea footage from BBC Earth, again without commentary or a score. The pace is slower and the screen darker than anything else here, which makes it the best choice on this list for a dim room late at night.
More about Deep Ocean: 10 Hours of Relaxing Oceanscapes | BBC Earth
