Adventure and Exploration Britain and the Sea

Britain is an island nation.

The seas around us have framed our history,

helped create our culture, made us who we are.

HE SHOUTS

I'm setting out to explore Britain's relationship with the sea,

how it's inspired our literature and art.

A mysterious sea full of wonder, full of danger.

An exciting sea, taking us to distant lands,

providing rich rewards.

A protective sea - our front line of defence against attack...

..and a romantic sea -

a challenge to the brave since the dawn of time.

This is a thrill for me.

Ow!

For my first journey around our island,

I'm sailing my boat Rocket along the coast of Cornwall and Devon -

one of the most beautiful shorelines in the country,

and one of the most exciting.

Our starting point is the Helford Estuary,

hidden away on the southern tip of the country.

'To help me sail this coastline, I have recruited a crew.'

-Josh, why don't you do drinks?

-Sure.

-Beer?

'Josh is a local sailing instructor.'

Butter, bit of butter... What are you doing?

-I'm just trying the cheese.

-Don't try it, just buy it!

'And with him his girlfriend, Eliza.'

Yes, please, that's lovely.

-Thanks very much, guys.

-Bye!

You all right?

-I'm good, I'm good.

-I'll take the rum.

THEY LAUGH

-So, welcome to Rocket. Hi, John.

-Hi, there. You all right?

'John has years of experience as a sailor and boat-builder,

'and he looks after Rocket.

'Where he goes, Stanley goes.'

So, life jackets - one, two...

Rocket was built over 30 years ago,

her design based on a Falmouth work boat of the late 19th century.

She's 28 foot long, but 40 foot

if you include the great pole sticking out front, the bowsprit,

which allows us to carry plenty of sail and drive the boat hard.

This corner of Britain gave birth to many of our most famous adventurers.

From here they set off to discover the four corners of the Earth -

voyages that would change our understanding of the world.

That's one of Henry VIII's castles.

Falmouth was defended, look, by that castle there and that one up there,

Pendennis. You could fire a cannon from there, a cannon from there.

'Our first port of call is the great inland harbour of Falmouth.

'It's not far, but we still need to plot the course.'

All coastal sailing, which is what I mainly do, can be dangerous

because you're, of course, close to the shore,

therefore you're close to rocks.

You have to watch out very carefully for tides, the direction of the wind

and then use your chart.

I mean, these charts are absolutely brilliant,

they've got all the metres, depths, they've got all the buoys marked.

But interestingly, several hundred years ago,

mariners had to rely on a rather cruder way of navigating,

and this is a copy of a chart of 1597.

The Helford River,

where we came from, Pendennis Castle that we went past,

and here into Falmouth, which, when this chart was made,

didn't yet exist. So all you've got is woodland,

but some of the other places are marked here - Strongate Creek,

St Mawes' Castle that had been built by Henry, there,

so it was designed to show how well-protected Falmouth was.

But it's also a work of art in its own right.

I mean, the drawings are so fine - impeccable drawings

of ships, lovely penmanship, the curve of the sails and the masts...

A sea battle going on out there.

Great puffs of smoke from the cannon fire.

Strange sea monsters. There's one there, with little jagged teeth,

and here's something that looks more like a little dog with red eyes.

And this idea of the land being a place that's relatively safe,

with churches and houses, and out there, "terra incognita",

the unknown seas, all the perils of the deep, was a powerful image

for sailors at the turn of the 17th century.

The sea has always inspired fear in the hearts of sailors...

..tales of mermaids who lured ships onto deadly rocks, and sea monsters

devouring whole vessels in a single gulp.

It can be a dangerous place,

and sensible sailors treat it with respect.

Stand by to jibe.

Steady, everybody.

OK, here we are coming up. Jibe ho!

Lovely, well done.

-Josh?

-Yep?

-Your reward is to come and take the helm.

-Nice.

-It's just like a dinghy, OK?

-Yeah.

-So we're heading... You see Falmouth?

-Yeah.

-So go straight as we are now.

-Sure.

Today, Falmouth is a busy working harbour.

Generations of seafarers have tramped these narrow streets,

from a time when the terrors of the deep were very real.

Sailors back from distant climes amazed people at home

with their stories of strange beasts and exotic fish.

And every now and again, their stories got a little out of hand.

Falmouth Aquarium has taken delivery of a nasty little creature

that used to strike fear into the hearts of our ancestors.

Agh!

Huh! I bet it stinks.

Hm.

This is a monkey fish, brought home by sailors from the Far East.

Now the thing about this is that people got away with saying

that this was a real monster from the deep

because the sea was such a mysterious place,

and people who went down to the sea came back with strange stories,

that they really believed for over 1,000 years

that a monster like this, a merman, a monkey fish, could have existed.

This one is actually made in Japan, where they used to produce

lots of these for sailors to bring home to their families.

And for a long time it was thought actually to have a monkey's head,

but they've studied them carefully now and they've revealed that this

is kind of plaster, the fish's tail is true, and the monkey's head is

made of papier-mache built up, and here there are little fish teeth,

human hair, and the claws here, or the hands,

are actually chicken or bantam's claws.

But it does just show how gullible people were,

or rather how terrified people were about the sea

and the terrors that it contained.

SHE LAUGHS

JOSH LAUGHS

Rocket's turned into a roller coaster.

There's always a bit of a worry

when the wind gets up that something might break or a big wave

might come in, but we seem to be doing all right so far.

We've just put our navigation lights on, so we can be seen

by other ships.

Oh... It's all right. It's not a holiday.

Thing is, there comes a point... Watch it.

Hold on, everybody!

..there comes a point when, if you've set off, you have to decide

whether to go back or keep going and actually, when you've got the wind

behind you and no tide against you, it's easier to go on than turn back.

As suddenly as the wind had blown up and the sea become a bit rough,

it had all calmed down again.

The moods of the sea are always changing.

It's part of its fascination.

The great painter JMW Turner came to this coast

in the early years of the 19th century.

For him, painting the sea was the greatest challenge of his life.

All around the coast of Britain,

he tried to capture the restless movement of the waves

and the interplay of water and light.

Leaving Falmouth behind, we're making good speed

towards our next destination -

once the smuggling capital of Cornwall, Mevagissey.

Today, Mevagissey is a pretty seaside town.

It makes the hundreds of visitors that come here each summer

feel at their ease.

200 years ago, it was a very different story.

It was smuggling on which this little village depended,

like villages all up and down the south coast of England.

Smuggling of tobacco, of spirits, of silks,

anything that could be brought in and avoid customs and excise duty.

The high-minded, of course, always complained about it.

The redoubtable Dr Johnson called smugglers "wretches",

rather like our modern politicians call people

who avoid their taxes morally indefensible.

But Mevagissey lends itself to smuggling.

Mevagissey is a town designed to confuse, a labyrinth of paths

which snake the hillside -

perfect territory for smugglers evading the authorities.

The poet Rudyard Kipling, in his Smuggler's Song, had sound advice

for anyone who happened to notice illegal activities -

best turn away.

"If you wake at midnight and hear a horse's feet

"Don't go drawing back the blind or looking in the street

"Them as asks no questions isn't told a lie

"Watch the wall, my darling while the gentlemen go by

"Five and twenty ponies trotting through the dark

"Brandy for the parson Baccy for the clerk

"Laces for a lady Letters for a spy

"And watch the wall, my darling while the gentlemen go by."

Smuggling was not even a guilty secret here in Mevagissey.

200 years ago, you could have walked into the pub

and found the locals openly hatching their illicit plans.

Local historian Geoff Pollard

and his cousin Gary Mitchell know all about the bad old days.

Well, the whole town was involved.

I mean, 2,300 people,

-most of whom were involved.

-Who would be involved?

Apart from the smugglers themselves.

Well, all the families that mattered were on to it.

-I mean, even local gentry were involved. Vicars.

-Really?

Did people not think it was wrong to smuggle?

Well, ask yourself the question, is it better to see people starving?

My father always used to say,

"You'd just as well be on the moon as in Cornwall",

because of its extreme distance from the centre of things - London.

Was it kept to this community, to the people of Mevagissey?

I mean, if a stranger came in, would they talk about the smuggling?

-Would they know?

-No, no.

You don't know to this day what went on in this town.

You don't, and nor anybody else, because nobody talks about it.

Tales of smuggling captured the imagination of painters, too.

The artist George Morland developed a popular line

in pictures of smuggling at the end of the 18th century.

He embraced the romantic image of heroic figures

flouting the law with their illicit booze and tobacco.

Sometimes, things went even further. Smuggling went hand in hand

with "wrecking" - deliberately luring ships on to rocks

with decoy lamps, and plundering their cargo as the crew drowned.

The lure of the sea is irresistible in Cornwall.

A few miles from Mevagissey is the castle of Caerhays.

Here, some of the most courageous journeys

were planned in the early 1900s, crossing vast oceans.

The expeditions of an intrepid adventurer, George Forrest.

He spent years of his life trekking through

the most remote mountain areas of China.

He froze to death on mountain tops, he lost mules over precipices,

and worst of all, on his very first journey -

and it didn't put him off - he was attacked by marauding Tibetans,

who killed two companions, French priests, and cut open their bodies

while they were still alive, took out their hearts, and ate them,

because to eat a Christian heart was to get strength.

He just managed to survive,

he had nothing to eat for over a week, he escaped. Did it stop him?

No, he went back and back,

and all because he was obsessed with finding this.

George Forrest was a plant hunter.

He undertook epic journeys of discovery

in the pursuit of new varieties of flower.

Here at Caerhays, they've got wonderful records

of George Forrest's extraordinary expeditions,

five of which were funded from here.

There he is, a brave, bold man.

They have the map of all his expeditions, done in red,

looking like blood stains on the mountains of China -

and suitably so, because they were always in danger.

There were always bandits, he lost guides,

he lost bearers to bandits on the roads down bringing these seeds.

It was a very perilous business.

He always took a camera with him on his expeditions,

and his books are not sort of happy family snapshots,

but pictures of trees, endless varieties of trees,

that he took, all beautifully catalogued, volumes of that.

Everything that he collected was catalogued -

books like Field Notes, Of Trees, Shrubs And Plants Collected In Western China,

and the list is endless.

He collected new acers and aliums and buddleias and clematis,

camellias and gentians, jasmines and lilies,

peonies and salvias, magnolias, 22 kinds of primulas -

to say nothing of 200-300 different kinds of rhododendron!

What we think of as the English country garden is anything but.

It's built on plants and seeds shipped thousands of miles

across turbulent seas.

Back on board Rocket, we're facing some turbulent seas of our own.

Well, it's quite rough, isn't it?

Um, well, this is what they call moderate to rough.

It may be bright and sunny,

but the swell is proving a bit much for the crew.

-Eliza?

-Yeah?

-You feeling all right?

-Um...

-Not very? What?

-Yeah, I'm OK.

-Are you?

-Just deep breaths.

Well, thing is, Josh, we wouldn't be going out in any worse than this.

Any worse than this and we'd be coming in anyway, so...

How many of your sick pills did you take?

Um, I took two but then I put these patches on as well,

so I've overdosed.

All right. Well, it can only get better.

VOMITING

-Whose idea was this trip?

-Yeah, exactly.

We'll soon be reaching Fowey,

a childhood home to the writer Daphne du Maurier.

Du Maurier is most famous for writing Rebecca and The Birds,

two novels made into Hollywood movies by Alfred Hitchcock.

Du Maurier spent many holidays here at Fowey in this romantic house

on the banks of the estuary.

She claimed Fowey and its relationship with the sea

made her a novelist in the first place.

Today, the house belongs to De Maurier's son, Kits.

-How are you?!

-All right!

Kits lives here under the watchful eye of Jane Slade.

She's seen here as the figurehead of an old trading schooner.

In reality, Jane Slade ran a boatyard on the river -

a woman in a man's world.

And it was her story that inspired Du Maurier's

first attempt at a novel, The Loving Spirit, written here in 1929.

I'm fascinated here by what it was about Jane Slade

that caught your mother's imagination.

And she was a girl of, what, 22 at the time?

21, even, I think, yes.

Well, she loved walking, and one day she came across this derelict ship

that was waiting to be broken up.

And on her bow was this faded and worn figurehead called Jane Slade.

It still had her name on it.

So she became fascinated, and that's really how it all came into being.

What was the character of Jane Slade that appealed to her?

What did she discover about the kind of person she was?

She was a very tough, small lady.

And apparently ran the boatyard with a rod of iron, you know -

she was really very, very tough.

And I think this impressed my mum a lot,

because she rather liked, you know, people who were tough,

and...especially the fact that she was a woman.

And this was one of the things that appealed to her.

So you've got that figurehead out there of Jane Slade,

and you've got her double in here.

-No, this is the real one.

-Oh, is it?

-Yes, yes.

-So we're all deceived by the one outside.

Yes, yes. Hopefully, everybody is deceived by it.

Because when we first bought the house back in 1993,

she was somewhat the worse for wear.

So what we decided to do is we found a man who said

he could make a fibreglass model.

A double. A stand-in. And now Jane is in happy retirement,

whilst the double is up on the roof looking out towards the sea.

"She longed for freedom as she saw a ship leave the harbour,

"the sails spread to the wind, the spirit free and unfettered,

"waiting to rise from its enforced seclusion,

"to mix with things like the wind, the sea and the skies."

"To become part of these things

"and move away like a silent phantom across the face of the sea."

-How's the fishing going?

-Yeah, good, fine!

-Have you caught anything?

-Uh, not yet.

-Not yet.

-You'll probably end up with all the seaweed in the sea.

-No!

Get off! Josh, I can do it.

No, they're doing very well with their fishing.

Nice, nice, isn't it? Look at the light there.

It's said that there's no greater challenge for an artist

than painting the sea.

Too true.

The thing about the sea is it's very difficult to capture

because it's so fast-moving all the time. Nothing stays still.

If you're doing a human portrait, at least the sitter is there -

if you're doing landscape, the trees basically are there,

the fields are there.

Actually trying to capture the sea,

these little wavelets all shuffling about...

I don't know how.

I think I'd better take a drawing course.

This great rock coming down.

And this is a very calm day, so I suppose it's cheating a bit.

And also, I'm what's called a Sunday artist.

If I could just capture even one wave, just one...

I'm as bad at capturing the waves as you two are at catching fish.

I've put in Rocket's boom here to show that we're at sea.

Charcoal is lovely stuff. It's sort of forgiving and it's messy!

You can't rub it out, though.

No, but that's a good thing, you have to be bold with it.

Rocket At Sea.

-It's yours.

-Oh, thank you!

-Yeah.

We're heading for Plymouth Sound,

the name given to the deep water bay and natural harbour

that's given Plymouth its place in maritime history.

Over the last 400 years, this stretch of water has witnessed

our greatest adventurers set out to establish our mastery of the seas.

It's still one of the Royal Navy's three operating bases in the UK.

I'm going ashore at Mount Edgecumbe, to pay homage to someone

who put the sea at the heart of our national life.

Most visitors here head for the big house up the hill,

but what I'm looking for is along the shoreline,

hidden among the trees.

They built this very pretty little pavilion as a memorial

a poet who's now virtually unknown - the Scot James Thomson.

In his day he represented everything

that people admired about Britain and the sea.

And this particular poem is about British men of war.

"Ribbed with oak to bear the British thunder

"Black and bold, the roaring vessel rushed into the main."

Curiously, the poem that he's probably best known for

is one that many people think would be better as our national anthem

than the rather dreary song that we have.

It starts "When Britain first at Heaven's command

"Rose up from out the azure main."

You probably know the rest.

# When Britain first at Heaven's command

# Rose up from out the azure main

# Arose arose arose from out the azure main... #

Written in 1740 and set to music by Thomas Arne, 'Rule, Britannia!'

became a rallying cry for a nation that was beginning to believe

it owned all the seas of the world.

# Rule Britannia!

# Britannia rule the waves

# Britons never never never shall be slaves. #

What a spectacular view this is!

Looking right across Plymouth Sound,

the site of so many great events of our history.

You could have stood here and watched our fleet set off

to chase the Spanish Armada up the Channel.

You could have stood up here and seen the Mayflower,

with its pilgrims, setting off for America.

You could have stood here just 30 years after Rule, Britannia!

was written and watched Captain Cook

setting off for the southern hemisphere,

full of curiosity about what that part of the world was like,

taking with him scientists

and botanists and artists to record everything he saw.

Cook sailed thousands of miles across uncharted areas of the globe.

And the artist William Hodges went with him

to capture the sights he saw,

from sultry Polynesian islands...

..to the frozen wilds of Antarctica...

..even the mysterious lost civilisation of Easter Island.

But there was one discovery that had a bigger effect on our visual arts

than any landscapes, and was first brought home by Cook's own sailors.

What is this?

This is a smuggler girl, a pirate girl.

We've got the fisherman on the inside,

you've got the two swallows, the traditional sailor tattoos.

When did you first have a tattoo?

My mum made me promise not to get anything done until I was 21.

And then what did you have done at 21?

I got my gran's initials on my wrist.

And what about these socking great things here? Chinese?

These are for my gran as well. Yeah, it's a Japanese tattoo.

So you really choose these very carefully.

-You must've really thought out...

-Yeah, I mean,

some are very meaningful and some are kind of...

the same way that someone collects art for their walls, I suppose.

Just collecting art on your skin instead.

Captain Cook was fascinated by the tattoos

he saw on his first voyage to Polynesia in 1768.

The word itself comes from the Tahitian word "tatau",

meaning to mark.

Today, the tribal tattoos that Cook

and his crew first came across are back in fashion.

Do you know what it all means? These type of symbols?

Some of the symbols, yeah. These symbols represent birds. The sea.

Arrows as in hunting arrows, something like that...

All of those are Polynesian. It's family, love, nature.

You also have to be hairless, don't you, on your arms?

-I couldn't have a tattoo because I've got hairs all over my arms.

-Well, shave them.

Yeah, but you have to keep shaving them.

Well, I'm going to ask you, man, would you ever have a tattoo?

I've only... I've thought about it,

but I don't think I ever would, really.

Well, there's a seat here for you. What would you have?

Well, that was the problem - what do you put?

If you had something small, what would you have?

Well, I'd have my own star sign, which is a scorpion.

That's what I'd have.

-It's a bit late now, though.

-It's never too late.

Only person who'll see my tattoo will be the undertaker.

'It took me some time, but in the end, I succumbed.

'And why not?

'Secretly, I'd always wanted one.'

-Ah.

-We'll remove just a little hair there.

I've got rather a hairy back.

Doesn't hurt so far.

"Name of artist."

So you're the artist, are you, Paul?

Yes, I am.

"Am I pregnant or breast-feeding?"

No, contrary to appearances, I'm not.

"Are you prone to fainting attacks?"

-We're just about to find out!

-We'll wait and see!

-How's that?

-That's fine. It's like being cut by a razor blade.

Ow!

-Is the pain worth it? Stiff upper lip!

-That's it.

So what's this actually doing? Drilling the ink into the skin?

Under the skin?

Yeah, so the needle breaks the surface of the skin and the ink

sits in a little reservoir and runs down between the needles -

and there's actually seven needles in what I'm using here -

and stays just above the dermis of your skin.

You mustn't talk too much cos you'll lose concentration

and I'll end up with a three-legged scorpion.

No, it was a seahorse, wasn't it?

No, it was a mermaid!

People paint kind of life stories on them, don't they?

The death of a member of the family or...

-I saw somebody with their children's names.

-Yep.

It's a good way to mark a time, remember a time in your life.

-Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing...

-Ow!

-We found a little sharp spot?

-Yes. Ow.

-All right.

-Is it done?

Yes, take yourself a look in the mirror.

I really can't bear to look.

-Come round.

-Oh, yes!

Ah.

Oh, you've done it incredibly well.

That is, I have to say, fantastic.

-Thank you very, very much.

-No problem at all. Enjoy.

-And it didn't hurt - not much!

-Good.

Can we take it off now?

We're motoring inland up the River Tamar

that separates Cornwall from Devon.

Up this river is the home of one of Britain's greatest adventurers.

Sir Francis Drake could claim to be Devon's most famous son.

Everyone remembers Sir Francis Drake as the man who defeated the Spanish

at the Armada, the first Englishman to sail right round the world.

What some people are always a bit embarrassed by

is what the real Drake was like.

They forget that he was a man of his time.

That's to say, he paid for these trips around the world

by pillaging and thieving and murder and mayhem. He traded slaves

across the Atlantic, he stopped Spanish ships, killed as many people

as necessary and stole the gold, he went ashore and destroyed villages

and forts. In other words, he did what was expected at the time.

He didn't go around the world just for the fun of it or "let's see

"whether it's really round" - he went round to make money

and make his fortune, and fortune he did make.

When he came back, ship laden with gold,

he did what all buccaneers, even the modern ones, do

when they've made their fortune - he bought himself a great country pile.

Buckland Abbey was a religious foundation

until the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII.

It was on the market in 1581 when Drake bought it for himself.

It was a fit home for a hero -

he'd just returned from his circumnavigation of the globe

with treasure and new territory for his queen, Elizabeth I.

And she gave him this. It's called the Drake Cup.

It's made in silver gilt. At the top it has this constellation,

showing the stars, the position of the stars,

of course, the way that sailors would navigate across the oceans

of the world. Below it the globe itself,

etched in very, very clear and distinct -

you can see Africa, Europe and India -

but interestingly the bottom part of this, the terra incognita,

where nobody had yet been, still not showing on this globe,

and instead there are sea monsters and all the usual depictions

of the horrors of the deep, the terrors of the unknown.

But what an extraordinary trophy.

He must have been thrilled to get this from the Queen.

If he'd been a modern man, he'd have picked it up

like they do with the football trophies or the Olympic gold medals

and kissed it for the photographers,

but the impact must have been the same -

it must have been sheer thrill, delirious excitement

to have this the great trophy to celebrate his circumnavigation.

History has been kind to Drake.

He's remembered as an explorer, adventurer and pioneer,

the embodiment of a self-made man.

He proved how mastery of the seas could make you rich and powerful.

Drake had planned to live out his days here,

in the splendour of Buckland.

But it wasn't to be.

Francis Drake died far away from here of fever.

Aboard his ship, in the bay of Panama, his sailors buried him

in a lead coffin and made a note of exactly where the coffin lay.

And I was involved in a mad scheme, a few years back,

to try and recover this coffin with Drake's body,

bring it back on a Royal Naval ship in great glory to Greenwich

and then up the river in a barge.

And I had this picture of him being buried in St Paul's Cathedral.

When we came to look at it in detail, there was

one group who you might have thought would be enthusiasts for it,

who were completely opposed to it - the Royal Navy - and why?

I think it was because though he is a national hero, Drake was a pirate!

For as long as there have been ships, there have been pirates.

And in the 17th and 18th centuries,

they were as feared at sea as highwaymen on land.

But our image of the pirate owes more to romantic literature

than to the real thing.

Stepping aboard, it's impossible to resist

the image of swashbuckling, rum-swilling rogues.

This ship certainly has an authentic look to it.

It's played the pirate ship in countless movies and TV,

including Treasure Island, based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.

No pirate ship, of course,

complete without its skull and crossbones

flying at the yardarm there.

Originally, the skull and crossbones was a sign you had fever on board

the ship, or plague, and therefore people should keep clear of you.

And then they quickly discovered that if you hoisted it

you could gain on your prey

because they thought, "Well, they're not going to touch us."

With her immense area of sail, it takes all of her crew of 17 -

make that 18! - to hoist the mainsail.

The exploits of British pirates have long since been the stuff

of legend and no pirate has inspired more stories than Henry Avery.

Legend has it he was the richest and most ruthless pirate

in history, although no-one is sure where fact ends and fiction begins.

His exploits captured public imagination

and the eager eye of popular novelists of the day.

The most famous of all Avery's exploits was the capture of one of

the great ships of the Muslim Mogul empire, which, with a princess

on board, was sailing from Mecca back to India, laden with treasure.

And the story was told romantically by Daniel Defoe,

the man who wrote Robinson Crusoe, in a book called

The King Of Pirates,

which was published about the same time as Avery was alive.

That raid was in 1695, this was published about 15 years later.

And this is what he has Avery say about getting on board

and finding the princess sitting on the side of a kind of bed

and covered with diamonds. "And I, like a true pirate,

"soon let her see I had more mind to the jewels than to the lady."

Avery, at least in fiction, is the lovable rogue

who leaves the princess' honour intact.

Quite what the truth is, we shall never know.

But at least his origins may have come to light,

and the evidence is nearby.

Newton Ferrers, to the east of Plymouth,

looks peaceful enough in the summer sunshine.

But the records of the local church suggest it may have been

the birthplace of Britain's most villainous pirate.

This handsome bound volume in parchment starts at 1600.

But in the middle, there's the entry for the year of 1659,

and the third entry, "Henry, the son of Mr John Avery,

"and Anne his wife, was born the 23rd day of August, 1659."

So that's the claim - that Henry Avery actually came from here.

But there's another intriguing document, equally mysterious,

which is this little piece of paper

that came from a family collection of records of things.

Now, it's headed "Avery The Pirate" and it says,

"On his return from India,

"he either landed or was shipwrecked on the Lizard where he buried

"three chests or boxes full of treasure

"in the sands of the seashore."

And this is the exciting bit - "The three boxes made of wood,

"large rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topaz and diamonds, 120 ingots

"of gold, 40 thick flat pieces of gold, 3,000 pieces of eight."

Well, no wonder treasure-seekers have been looking for this

ever since this document was found.

And people still go down to the Lizard

in the hope that they can crack the mystery.

Well, actually, crack open the boxes

that Henry Avery is meant to have left behind.

All of Avery's victims were foreigners,

which may account for his popular status in British legend.

But there's a surprising postscript to the story of piracy.

And this time, it was the people of Devon and Cornwall

who were the victims.

This time, the threat came from abroad.

It came from pirates from North Africa -

the so-called Barbary Coast.

They came down here, took men and boys off ships,

and took them captive to turn them into slaves in North Africa.

But worse still, they went ashore, often at night,

to these villages, and seized people - boys and men.

It got so bad that in 1685, the authorities in Devon and Cornwall

said that over 1,200 men and boys had been taken captive.

It was so bad that the fishermen had stopped putting out to sea

for fear they'd be taken.

Barbary pirates continued to be a threat to the British coast

for over a century, until the British government took action.

A fleet led by Lord Exmouth attacked the city of Algiers

to put an end to the kidnappings.

After a day-long bombardment, the city fell,

and 3,000 Christian slaves were freed.

Lord Exmouth returned a hero.

The success of the bombardment was celebrated with this great trophy,

a monumental trophy, called the Exmouth Tablepiece.

It's made of silver gilt, and it was done by a famous engraver

at the time, Paul Storr, and it shows, first of all, at the centre,

the lighthouse itself at the port of Algiers with guns all round,

three layers of guns.

And on the top, the lantern of the lighthouse, and, above it,

you can just see the crescent and the star of the ruler of Algiers.

And then these vivid scenes around the four corners -

here the Muslim pirate being put to the sword by a British sailor,

having his hat pulled off and a knife about to cut his throat.

And on this side, a Christian slave being freed,

hands in supplication to the heavens as a sailor frees him,

and has the chain from his handcuffs or his leg.

At the bottom, the coat of arms of Lord Exmouth,

the word "Algiers" at the bottom, a lion, and on the other side,

a slave with a crucifix in one hand and his chains in the other.

And then relief panels here, on either side, of the battle itself

in progress - the ships bombarding the city.

"This tribute of admiration

"and esteem is most respectfully presented by the rear admiral,

"the captains and commanders, who had the honour to serve under him

"at the memorable victory gained at Algiers on the 27th August 1816."

It's a truly astonishing work.

Yeah, if you try and... If you hold up the knot...

-Through the hole.

-Through the hole.

-Round the tree.

-Round the tree.

-No, round this tree.

Oh, this is the tree.

-Round the back of the tree.

-That's a granny knot.

-Oh!

Through the hole, round the tree,

then back down through the hole the same way.

I think the easiest knot to get wrong is a reef knot.

I don't know why.

You quite often do them.

That's a good bowler!

Without even looking, though.

-Good job.

-Good bowler, Dave.

Thank you!

We're approaching our final destination,

to see how the adventurer spirit lives on today.

For me, this is the climax of our journey.

In the harbour at Dartmouth, we're coming alongside Gipsy Moth IV.

This is the boat in which Sir Francis Chichester

circumnavigated the globe single-handed in 1966.

Nice boat.

Hi. Hi - you OK, everyone?

On board is one of my heroes, Dame Ellen MacArthur,

who did the same solo circumnavigation in 2005,

breaking all the records for the fastest time ever.

-Hello.

-Nice to meet you.

-Very, very nice to meet you.

This is a thrill for me,

like when I danced with Margot Fontaine.

And when I danced with Margot Fontaine I had a plate put on

the floor where I danced with her, saying I danced there, and I'm going

to have a plate put on Rocket saying "Ellen McArthur came on board."

-Will you come on board?

-Oh, I'd love to.

-Excellent.

-Welcome.

-Thank you.

-Big, big welcome.

-She's lovely.

-She's beautiful, isn't she?

-Beautiful.

All John's doing. He looks after her.

-Hiya.

-Hiya.

-And good to see a dog on board as well.

Yeah, I'm not so sure about the dog.

Ow. Rather grander than Rocket.

It was this very boat, Gypsy Moth IV,

that first ignited the young Ellen MacArthur's passion for sailing,

and inspired her to attempt her own gruelling circumnavigation.

It's always been seen as a man's world, hasn't it, the sea?

I never really saw it as that.

I've never really considered myself to be any different

from the other sailors, I was just someone growing up

who had a dream to sail around the world who made it happen.

People would say, you know, you're not huge,

you haven't got great muscles, you know.

You're a shrimp compared with some of the men who go to sea.

You know, that it must've been physically actually

very difficult for you.

It's physically difficult for anybody.

My biggest challenge out there was living with

the amount of stress that I had, with a boat powering through

the water 24 hours a day, seven days a week, knowing that one mistake

would have you upside down and then you probably wouldn't survive.

Living at that speed with that adrenaline with that little sleep, that's what makes it very hard.

Oh, it's not fair!

'And it's actually more frightening afterwards than during.

'During, you deal with it.

'During, your body's full of adrenaline,

'you just find the way to get out of the situation.

'But afterwards is when you realise actually, that was pretty close.'

I think you're mad as a hat!

And brave beyond... beyond belief to have done that.

I just can't believe it.

-I don't think...

-I get nervous when we go out here at force five,

thinking Rocket's going to sink.

"Ooh, I'm going to die!"

And there are you off Cape Horn in a force ten!

If you choose it, it's not bravery. It's your choice.

-I think they're quite different.

-So what is it?

If you choose to do it?

If you choose to do it, probably madness. You're probably right!

-You're doing all the work.

-You've done enough.

I just love the adventure of being on the water.

The adventure of being at sea, the fact that, you know, we could literally say,

"Oh, we're not going back to Dartmouth,

"why don't we just go to France?"

or, "Why don't we go to America, right now?"

There's nothing to stop this boat doing that. I find that amazing.

How would you compare what you did with what, say, Francis Drake did?

If you sail on a boat today or 500 years ago,

when you look out across the southern ocean

and you see the white caps and the waves, they're just the same.

You may look back at a different boat, but it's the same place.

Doesn't change with time.

Our trip ends at one of Britain's great monuments to sea power -

the Britannia Royal Naval College, standing majestic on its hill,

looking down on Dartmouth.

Built in 1905, at the height of Britain's domination

of the seas, it's been described as a great battleship on land.

It was designed by the same architect who created

the front of Buckingham Palace, Sir Aston Webb.

This is where naval officers are trained for their life at sea.

This building breathes power.

It was opened on the 100th anniversary

of Nelson's famous victory at Trafalgar,

which finally established Britain's command of the seas.

And at the beginning of the 20th century, it was our idea

to have a Navy at least twice the size of any of our rivals.

And this place was designed to inspire the officers to run it.

Eyes front!

We've been on a relatively short journey by sea,

but a long voyage through time from "terra incognita"

and "here be dragons", to the pirates,

to the daring exploits of the Elizabethan sea dogs,

to end up here with Britain dominating the oceans of the world,

and proud, even arrogant, about it.

'Next time, we set sail along the southeast shore of Britain,

'our frontier coast. For centuries, the first line of defence

'against invasion.'

Watch that dog!

'We'll discover how we built the most powerful ships.'

Let me down about a foot.

'The greatest defensive fortifications.'

'And how writers and painters have used their arts to nourish

'our sense of independence.'