I am rewatching The Little Mermaid and during the scene where prince Eric’s ship is hit by a storm, you can see some shorter shots of the sea beneath its surface and it looks pretty calm, while the surface is absolutely ravaged by the storm.
Is this an oversimplification or is this actually the case?
This may not be what you are looking for, there was a guy who took half of his family scuba diving the day of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.
He said the day before scuba diving was easy. The day of the Tsunami he described scuba diving as trying to swim inside of a washing machine. He knew something was really wrong long before the boat he was on got back to shore.