This document is part of the Ocean Girl Archive — Last update: 2010-09-11 — source — meta
While returning from migration with her companion, Charley the humpback whale, Neri comes to the rescue of Dr. Hellegren, head of the sinister UBRI organization. Obsessed with this ocean girl, Hellegren cruelly repays her kindness by taking her prisoner.
With Charley’s assistance, Neri manages to escape into the safety of the ocean, but Hellegren now knows of her existence and becomes determined to discover the truth about her.
Neri, back on her island, is reunited with Jason and Brett. Seeing Neri’s interest in unearthing her mysterious past, the boys swear they will help her find out where she came from and who she really is.
Meanwhile, on ORCA, Commander Kate Byrne arrives on the research colony with her smart-aleck son, Mick.
Mick’s arrival on ORCA soon proves less than welcome by Jason, Brett, and their friends. After Mick lures him into a decompression chamber, Rocky inadvertently triggers the system. The other kids are quick to the rescue, but, when Commander Byrne investigates the incident, they discover that, as far as she’s concerned, her son Mick can do no wrong.
Following Winston’s theory that perhaps the key to her past is somewhere on the island, Neri, aided by her friends from ORCA, scours her home for clues.
They soon find a strange amulet, which was left for Neri by her father. This clue leads to another and sets off a search that stretches across the island. The final cryptic message points to a beach in the Badlands and the wreckage of a vessel on which Neri’s people came to the island. When they find the vessel, however, they can see that it is not of terrestrial origin - it is some kind of spacecraft.
On ORCA, Kimberley embarrasses a loudmouthed Nick by beating him in a race, while Commander Byrne instructs Dianne and Winston to commence a survey of the ocean floor in preparation for the building of a new ORCA city.
Meanwhile, on the island, Neri and Jason discover a way to get inside the submerged wreckage of the spacecraft. They discover two strange objects that have clearly been left for Neri to find. One is a kind of signaling device, which they attempt to repair and replace in its socket aboard the craft. It still appears broken, however, and, when the structure begins to crumble further, the kids have to make a run for it. Only after they are gone does the signaling device become activated. The other object found on board produces a hologram of Neri’s father. He tells her the importance of their doomed mission to Earth and finishes with a final revelation. Neri had a younger sister named Mera on board, and it is possible that she, too, still lives.
On the seacraft, Dianne and Winston prepare for the undersea survey, but young Joanne falls overboard. While she is actually rescued by Neri, Joanne believes Winston to be a wonderful hero, responsible for saving her life.
Using Froggy’s skills with the ORCA computer named H.E.L.E.N., the kids begin to search for any record of the existence of Neri’s sister, Mera. An old newspaper record finally leads them to an aboriginal fisherman, who tells them about the baby girl he found floating in the sea in a strange survival capsule.
The local authorities came and took the child away, however, and he doesn’t know what happened to her. Neri is momentarily disheartened, but her friends reassure her that they have the name the child was given, and they know she was put into official care. It’s enough to start looking, and they swear that they will track Mera down even if it takes forever.
At sea in a small boat captained by Sam, Dianne and Winston find that Neri’s unique underwater abilities are a great help in their survey of the ocean floor.
As the gang continues to hunt for Mera, their trail leads to a strange institute, which specializes in studying children with unusual intelligence capacities. By breaching the institute’s sophisticated security system, they reach their objective and come face-to-face with Mera.
The girl, however, is withdrawn and dubious of the fantastic story they tell her. Only when Jason promises to bring her proof of her older sister’s existence does she agree to remain open-minded. The gang flees, however, when Hellegren makes a sudden, unexpected appearance. UBRI is a sponsor of the institute, and Hellegren, who is particularly interested in Mera’s latent telepathic ability, selects her to be taken to UBRI for further study.
As Mera is being prepared to be taken to UBRI, the gang returns with Neri’s amulet, which matches one that Mera wears around her own neck. Seeing this link with her unknown past, Mera agrees to come with them. They flee the institute, pursued by the forces of UBRI, and, after a narrow escape in a cane field, the gang manages to shake off the pursuers.
The two sisters, Neri and Mera, are at last reunited. There are signs, however, that Mera, who has been brought up among humans, is going to have some trouble adjusting to life on Neri’s island.
Vanessa, meanwhile, falls for one of Mick’s cruel jokes and agrees to be his dance date. She later handles the intended public humiliation but confides in Neri that she is deeply hurt.
Mera continues to find Neri’s island unnerving and uncomfortable. Neri must occasionally leave the island to help Dianne with her survey of the sea floor. Because of that, Mera, feeling abandoned, wishes she’d never come to such a place.
Meanwhile, security footage from the institute has revealed the gang’s connection to ORCA, leading Hellegren to the underwater research colony.
Mick’s reading difficulties are discovered by the other kids when he is unable to read operating instructions for a fire extinguisher in an emergency.
When Neri is away helping Dianne with the survey, Mera’s unfamiliarity with the island’s habitat puts her life in danger. Neri returns in time to save her sister but realizes that Mera needs a crash course in living in harmony with her natural surroundings. To Neri’s great relief, Mera begins to find increasing pleasure in the island’s simple joys, and her withdrawal is soon replaced by a curiosity and feistiness reminiscent of her older sister. When Mera finally says that she now understands why Neri loves her island, Neri corrects her. It is their island now.
Unbeknownst to the sisters, however, another complication has arisen. The survey has accidentally turned up signs of a huge reef of titanium under the sea floor, and the survey boat’s captain, Sam, suddenly recognizes that there may be a great deal of money to be made - at a great cost to Neri’s environmental mission.
Mera’s new confidence and ability are demonstrated when UBRI forces land on the island in search of the sisters. Mera is able to evade them, and the UBRI troops move on to the next island, none the wiser. UBRI is drawing ever closer, however, planting two undercover agents, Forsyth and Liselle, on board ORCA, while Hellegren secretly begins to follow the survey boat. UBRI now has eyes both inside and outside ORCA, and Hellegren is convinced that one of these will soon lead him to the girls.
On board Sam’s survey boat, the commander’s obnoxious son, Mick, accidentally catches a glimpse of Neri and Mera, and the gang has to convince him that he was mistaken. Sam continues to draw closer to Dianne, but Jason remains unreceptive to him. Told of the titanium discovery, Neri worries about underwater mining endeavors, as they are directly against the mission and the message her father brought to Earth.
Neri and Mera are swimming beneath the survey boat when the UBRI forces make their move. A group of divers attempts to capture the girls, but Charley’s intervention allows them to slip from Hellegren’s clutches.
The incident allows Mera to make the telepathic contact with Charley that has eluded her in the past, but it is also witnessed by Sam and a small group of other kids from ORCA, including Mick. One by one, the other kids swear to keep secret the existence of Neri and Mera, but Mick is not so forthcoming, enjoying the power that this knowledge gives him.
The girls are taken to the Bates’s cabin on board ORCA - the safest place for them at the moment. However, with enemies both inside and outside the installation, their whereabouts cannot remain secret forever.
As Hellegren scans the seas outside ORCA for signs of Neri and Mera, his undercover agents do the same on board the installation. Liselle is ordered to work on Mick, who is clearly the weak link among the kids, and for a while it looks as if the boy might betray Neri. However, when Neri gives him the confidence to overcome his difficulty in reading, for once Mick faces up to his own shortcomings and asserts his loyalty to Neri, Mera, and the gang.
However, Winston’s allegiances suddenly come into question, as he is seen in a secret meeting on Neri’s island with two strange searchers.
When the UBRI forces uncover Neri and Mera’s hiding place, time seems to be running out for the girls. Forsyth sabotages H.E.L.E.N., and ORCA is plunged into chaos. In the confusion that follows, Liselle discovers that Neri and Mera are actually on board ORCA.
When Mera finds herself in jeopardy, Neri is about to reveal her presence in order to save her sister. However, quick action by Brett and a subsequent threat to his life make Neri change her mind. Dianne appreciates Neri’s motives but extracts a promise from her never to do it again. Neri’s gesture, though, prompts Sam to pass up the fortune to be made from the titanium reef and to keep its existence a secret rather than let mining companies ruin the oceans that are the girlsʼ domain.
Winston’s loyalty is proven when he reveals that the strange searchers with whom he has been in contact are in fact emissaries from Neri and Mera’s home planet, who have come to take the girls back. However, the sisters have only 24 hours to make a decision. The craft for the return journey is concealed on Neri’s island, and if the girls wish to leave, they must get through the flotilla of UBRI boats waiting just outside ORCA in anticipation of just such a move. Escape would appear to be impossible.
Mera tells Neri of her desperate wish to return to her homeland, and Neri agrees. However, they still face the dilemma of how to elude the UBRI forces waiting for them outside. With the girlsʼ decision to return home, the gang, now including Mick, holds a council of war. They devise an elaborate scheme to outsmart UBRI that sends their enemies off on a high-speed, wild goose chase, allowing Neri and Mera, disguised as boys, to slip through the UBRI armada and make it to the island safely. When Froggy and Rocky restore H.E.L.E.N., Liselle and Forsyth are taken into custody.
After emotional farewells on Neri’s island, the sisters disappear with the searchers into the fog-shrouded rescue craft. The craft lifts off and flashes across the sky, revealing to Hellegren that his quarry has fled and his obsession and quest for control were apparently futile.
Back on the island, as the Bates family sadly prepares to return to ORCA, a figure slips out from the mist. It is Neri, who has decided at the last moment that, while Mera should return to their people, she should remain to continue their father’s mission to watch over the seas as Ocean Girl.