Beneath the waves off a beach town in Honduras lies a mysterious and vibrant place — an ecosystem whose animals defy the odds stacked against their kind worldwide.

It’s a well-known story: The future of coral reefs is at the mercy of a litany of foes, from pollution to climate change, that threaten these critical ecosystems on which so many creatures, including billions of humans, depend. But a different story awaits us in Tela. It’s a story that’s intertwined with local divemaster and 2025 Pathfinder Prize expedition leader, “Aquaman” Christian Carias. And it’s a story that has inspired a team of scientists, filmmakers, and explorers to bring us beneath those waves — and give us reasons to believe.

Welcome to The Rebel Reef: The 2025 Pathfinder Issue of Hidden Compass — a multimedia issue dedicated entirely to stories from that expedition.

Team Rebel Reef celebrates the world-wide premiere of their short documentary, directed by Brynne Rardin, in December 2025. The film profiles Tela’s rebellious reef and divemaster Christian Carias. For those who want a sneak peek, the Human & Nature department of this Pathfinder issue boasts the highly anticipated “Trailer: The Rebel Reef.”

But the story, like the reef itself, is multilayered. Behind the big screen of “The Rebel Reef” is a monumental effort which plays out in this issue’s “Gallery: A Film in the Making.” This photo collection, hosted in our Portrait department, features behind-the-scenes images made by expedition photographer and videographer Vinh Pham, film stills from director of photography Patrick Krum, and a shy whale shark.

Three written features round out the issue. In “The Ocean’s Cure,” Rebel Reef’s executive producer and coral restoration practitioner, Tiffany Duong, takes on the Pathfinder expedition’s most salient question: Should we dare to hope? In Tela, a collection of narratives — of inspired scientists, determined Hondurans, and an 80-foot-long, 500-year-old coral named Casita — come together in this Human & Nature story that confronts crises both global and personal.

Then, we follow a group of schoolchildren as they crowd before the Tela Marine Aquarium exhibits to glimpse “Dreams Behind the Glass.” In this Time Travel feature, ocean scientist and author Juli Berwald chronicles the kids’ visit in 2025, and takes us back a decade and a half earlier, when Honduran Antal Borcsok decided to explore some interesting rocks that fishermen had found along the coast in 2010.

As for how Tela’s reef is able to thrive against the odds? In Juli Berwald’s second story and Quest feature for the 2025 Pathfinder issue, the ocean scientist and Tela Coral co-founder delves into a series of “Hypotheses on the Rebel Reef” — exploring the mix of sediment-filled rivers, fertilizer-fueled phytoplankton, strategic zooxanthellae switching, and mysterious black sands that may be behind the miraculous success of The Rebel Reef.

Thriving in the unlikeliest of locations, this reef isn’t just a rebel. It’s also a role model that might signal hope for corals around the globe and the humans who love and depend on them. Do we dare to believe?

Yours in rebellious hope,

Sivani Babu and Sabine K. Bergmann, Hidden Compass Co-founders

Sometimes it’s just out of reach. Sometimes it’s impossibly far away. But no matter the distance, hope moves us to remarkable places and soothes the darkest of our troubles.

In the summer 2025 issue of Hidden Compass, five storytellers — including both of our co-founders — are “Searching for Hope.” They chase it from the highways of American interstates to the expanse of the open ocean, facing disasters both natural and human, connecting with butterflies, midwives, and an insufferable historical hero. None emerge the same. Will you?

First, in the bougainvillea-filled courtyards of Oaxaca City, Mexico, Hidden Compass co-founder Sabine K. Bergmann threads herself into a remarkable network of midwives at an abortion training. Following these women to rural regions and cartel-controlled territories as they seek the girls and women who need them, Sabine’s Portrait feature, “Woven Together by Choice,” laces their stories into the legacies of Zapotec pyramids and bright Oaxacan textiles — revealing striking truths about the struggle and hope of grassroots reproductive care.

And from London, Kentucky to Horseshoe Beach, Florida, Hidden Compass co-founder Sivani Babu reports from her American Red Cross deployments to communities struck by a convergence of disasters — and threatened by a shift in federal disaster management. Inspired by a sign on a boarded-up window, Sivani’s Human & Nature feature explores the resilience of those in the path of destruction and the impact of their appeal: “Do Not Destroy.”

From land, we take to the sea. Inspired by a historic round-the-world ocean voyage, writer and photographer Jordan Winters joins a crew from more than 40 nations aboard the Oosterschelde, a tall ship following “In the Wake of Darwin.” Surrounded by scientists and rattled by the sea crossing from Tasmania to New Zealand, Jordan chronicles her Quest to tap into the young naturalist Charles Darwin’s years aboard the HMS Beagle, creating a photo feature that churns up insights on beauty, paradox, shortcomings, and triumph.

Then, for the summer issue’s Chasing Demons story and second photo feature, journalist Jodi Cash heads across the United States with her husband in an old Chevy van. In the storm of COVID-19 and a sudden death in the family, Jodi seeks the promise of the open road — as many have done before her. But on “The Gilded Road,” the hope and possibility of the American interstate is fractured, and the journey to Truth or Consequences is winding.

Finally, circling back from our spring 2020 issue, writer Martha Ezell’s “Journey of a Golden Soul” follows the multigenerational migration of millions across the North American continent. Her Portrait story takes us to Mexico’s Sierra Madre range, where she finds an astonishing kaleidoscope of wings, and chronicles the impressive yet fragile comeback of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.

For our readers and storytellers who never stop reaching for hope,

Sabine K. Bergmann and Sivani Babu, Hidden Compass Co-founders

In the last few years, as we’ve expanded into global expeditions and documentary films, we’ve welcomed hundreds of thousands of new readers to Hidden Compass. Many of our newest readers are unfamiliar with our earlier stories, so we’re bringing some of them back. This year, every issue of Hidden Compass will feature an article from the archives — one that complements the brand-new stories in the issue.

In Lewis Carroll’s classic tale, an unsolvable riddle emerges from the realms of the absurd, where oddities and curiosities throw logic out the window. Like in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, we often find ourselves confronting enigmas that are nonsensical, scary, and weird — but for many of us, they also happen to be real.

In the spring 2025 issue of Hidden Compass, “A Raven Like a Writing Desk,” five storytellers pursue insight within the paradoxes of the unexplainable. Join them as they meet mischievous swimming monkeys, chronicle community in a refuge that perhaps shouldn’t exist, marvel at the heartbreaking art of decay, visit the ruins of a socialist Disneyland, and seek catharsis for a tragedy they never experienced.

For travel writer Gary Singh, a nagging sense of loss permeated decades of his reporting in San José, California. With the help of a discovery in his mom’s closet, that unexplainable feeling catapulted him on a Quest to Jalandhar, India. There, Gary faces the impact of the sudden haphazard borders imposed by Partition. The bloodshed of that era, which created the largest single mass migration event in human history, ripples forward in coincidences, revealing how “Truth is the Timeless One.”

Meanwhile, kayaking in the crystalline waters of Silver Springs State Park, Florida, writer Melissa Hart encounters the bewildering history of a place “Where Greed Grows Wild.” In her Human and Nature feature, Melissa bears witness to centuries of prosperity, exploitation, and foolishness, from mammoth hunters to alligator wrestlers to James Bond in scuba gear. But in the spectacle lies a riddle about the darker side of love. 

Then, within the walls of the Kreenholm textile factory — a vast, abandoned complex in Narva, Estonia — writer and photographer Tim Bird admires the beauty of decay. For visit after visit, Tim meets former factory workers whose memories of bustling activity contrast with the frost-sparkled emptiness captured in Tim’s photo feature and Portrait story. But the joyful recollections of “The Lost Cathedrals of Industry” harken back to an imperial era that may best be left behind — yet still looms across the border.

And on a multi-year bicycle ride down the length of South America, journalists Anastasia Austin and Douwe den Held seek respite in the mountain town of Contratación, Colombia. In their Chasing Demons feature, “Sanctum Sanatorium,” a story of old cruelties and misunderstood disease is more modern than expected — and the camaraderie of patients with leprosy raises a bigger question.

Finally, “The Disneyland of Socialism’s Demise” brings its own riddles from the Hidden Compass archives. First published seven years ago in our summer 2018 issue, this Time Travel feature chronicles the history of Spreepark — a crumbling theme park haunted by the nostalgia of communist East Germany. Beside its gently screaming ferris wheel, writer Krishan Coupland considers its bizarre past and uncertain future.

For our readers and storytellers who appreciate all manners of the absurd,

Sabine K. Bergmann and Sivani Babu, Hidden Compass Co-founders 

In the last few years, as we’ve expanded into global expeditions and documentary films, we’ve welcomed hundreds of thousands of new readers to Hidden Compass. Many of our newest readers are unfamiliar with our earlier stories, so we’re bringing some of them back. This year, every issue of Hidden Compass will feature an article from the archives — one that complements the brand-new stories in the issue.