Nearly a thousand people climbed the world's highest mountain, Everest, last year. Humans know the limits and secrets of our environment, of what we see, very well, and even the most inaccessible point has become a tourist attraction. But on planet Earth there are still many things we don't see, practically unreachable places. Everest is two kilometers shorter than the deepest point in the oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Pacific, an immense well that is almost 11,000 meters deep. There are still many secrets to discover.

The Ormuz crisis, through which more than 30% of global oil and liquefied gas exports circulate, has brought to the fore the difficult balances in the control of maritime transport, which until now seemed stable and controlled but which wars and the race of the great powers, especially the United States and China, to control maritime routes are calling into question. 80% of everything that surrounds us has traveled by sea, be it fuel, raw materials, food, or manufactured products. Despite this central and strategic role, maritime transport and, in general, everything that happens at sea – even in the scientific field – is a generally unknown world. On the high seas, the law of the sea prevails, but this is variable and always clashes with that of the countries where calls are made, with those who have armed the ships, with the owners of the ports, or, also, with those who militarily or strategically control the ocean. The dispersion is so great that sometimes isolated information does not allow one to realize the complexity of the whole.

"If sea transport stopped, half the population would die of hunger and the other half of cold." This is stated by Germán de Melo, president of the Spanish Merchant Navy Officers' Association. If we look around us, more than 80% of the things that surround us have traveled by ship across the oceans that cover 70% of our planet. "In reality, we should call Earth planet Sea," states merchant captain Francesc Lleal. The sea is still largely unknown, indispensable for the global economy to function.