The Explorers' Coast Coast

Tower Bridge control. Tower Bridge control.

BEEPING

Can you confirm your name, please?

This is Coast.

As islanders, it's in our blood to reach out and explore.

Sails up, gears in motion, and 30 miles to the open sea.

I'm following in the wake of our coastal pioneers,

seafarers who left the land in search of oceans of opportunity.

And the team are on voyages of exploration too.

Tessa is telling a Pilgrims' tale, where explorers go wayward.

How did a group of illegal stowaways

come to found the most powerful nation on earth?

And why did they head here,

to Amsterdam, before America?

And Andy's in pursuit of cod, exploring the deep.

I'm searching for the solution to

a question that's easy to ask, but hard to answer.

How many fish are in the sea?

This is The Explorers' Coast.

MUSIC: "Coast Theme" by Alan Parker

For centuries, explorers set sail from the capital

to make their mark on the world.

This Explorers' Coast

offers glimpses of glorious voyages gone by.

A replica of Drake's Golden Hind -

the first English ship to circumnavigate the globe.

The Cutty Sark - a super-fast clipper built for global commerce.

She ran trade routes that early explorers pioneered.

And, surprisingly, that spirit of exploration

still thrives on this highway to the sea.

I've hitched this lift to meet modern-day explorers,

soon to embark in the wake of heroic seafarers of old.

It's a personal passion of mine

to walk around our coast, as you may know,

but circumnavigating these isles by sea

has captivated intrepid explorers for millennia.

It's a nautical tradition that proudly lives on.

Our earliest explorers relied on muscle power.

Can these crews match our ancient ancestors?

Remarkably, they're trying to row right around Britain.

This is going to be a wild ride.

This is what it was always like leaving the Thames

at the beginning of an amazing voyage.

You waited till the ebb tide

and you got sluiced down towards the ocean.

You can feel the power of the river willing you on your way.

Soon, the tide will propel

the rowing boats to sea.

Turning the corner

on the south coast,

the rowers will follow

in the wake of paddle-powered explorers from the Bronze Age...

..braving the same deadly reefs at Land's End.

Pressing on to the Irish Sea,

they'll struggle like Celtic oarsmen of old.

As our crews reach the Scottish coast,

they'll row in seas

ruled by Viking explorers.

On the home shores of Captain Cook and Admiral Nelson,

our rowers must pull together,

as did heroic life-savers of the east coast.

Coming full circle,

our explorers will have rowed

themselves into history.

That incredible voyage lies ahead.

Now, they're almost ready to leave the capital behind,

for a month or more, in tiny craft.

Well, it's very confined in that cabin

and that's putting it politely - it's absolutely minute!

And when you crawl in, then -

you really do have to crawl - after a rowing spell,

you're really tired

and you don't get much rest in there

because the boat is pitching from side to side.

Just movement the whole time,

there's actually no physical rest at all.

And this is just the Thames!

Well, good luck, guys,

and row safe.

-Cheers.

-Bye.

-Bye.

Exploration begins with fond farewells

that our coast has witnessed through the ages.

SHIP HORNS BLARE

Can these explorers prove their mettle

and match up to ancient mariners

who propelled themselves around our isles?

2,000 miles on the oars - an odyssey from millennia ago.

Whoa!

While they're all at sea,

I'm going on my own journey by foot.

I'm following the forgotten explorers

who first navigated our treacherous coast.

Epic voyages that not only shaped us as a people,

but revealed the shape of our mysterious shores.

And, of course, our exploration of the explorers' coast

is a team effort.

Tessa is going back 400 years for a voyage to new worlds.

She's embarking from Boston, Lincolnshire,

on a pitch-dark night.

It's winter,

the year of our Lord 1607, on the shores of Boston.

A desperate group are fleeing from religious persecution.

100 men, women, and children are gathered here,

seeking illegal passage to a new life overseas.

But they're betrayed.

DOOR THUDS AND LOCK CLICKS

The captain has double-crossed the illegal emigrants.

They're captured by the authorities, who throw them into this very cell.

DOOR THUDDING

These explorers in search of religious freedom

were in fact the Pilgrim Fathers.

MUSIC: "The Star-Spangled Banner"

The founders of what would become the United States of America.

And as every American knows,

their founding fathers set sail from Plymouth, England,

on board the good ol' Mayflower.

MUSIC STOPS RAPIDLY

But hang on a minute!

The Pilgrim Fathers,

when they were attempting to leave Boston, weren't on the Mayflower,

and they weren't heading for America -

they were off to Holland.

BICYCLE BELL RINGS

We know that... because of this man...here.

William Bradford.

He was one of the would-be escapees,

and he kept a journal.

In it he wrote -

"We resolved to go to the Low Countries,

"where we heard was freedom of religion for all men."

So, if Holland was where they intended to set up home,

how on earth did they become blown off course

and end up founding modern America?

To understand that, let's begin with where they came from -

the tiny Nottinghamshire village

of Scrooby, with its own historian Sue Allen.

So, Sue, tell me about this place called Scrooby.

Well, you've probably never heard of it,

but everyone knows where Sheffield is,

and if you just travel

east into north Nottinghamshire

-you'll find this tiny little speck. That's Scrooby.

-Oh,

it is weeny and there's no sea. It's landlocked!

This is rural Nottinghamshire.

They clearly weren't seafaring types,

why where these villagers so keen to leave?

It's all down to religion.

Our group were Puritans,

the Church of England was too Catholic for their liking,

and because they made a stand

and wanted to leave the Church of England

that was a no-no.

The head of the church was the monarch,

if you go against the monarch it's almost treason.

So they have no option but to turn towards the sea.

To go across the sea.

The Puritans resolved to put their faith in Protestant Holland.

Their story is taught to children

but that chapter's often skipped over.

Remember we last left them in prison in Boston in 1607.

The book tells us that they were released and sent back home

and told NOT to flee again.

But they didn't obey.

Their next voyage was successful.

By the grace of God the Pilgrims had been delivered to Amsterdam.

In 1608, they'd set sail from the Humber Estuary,

but the English villagers didn't find the bustling business hub

of Amsterdam to their Puritan taste.

So the group set off again to Leiden...

..a city not of commerce, but of ideas.

The explorers in search of religious freedom,

settled happily into the university town of Leiden...

..and set about

doing what they did best.

Antagonising the Church of England.

Have a look at this pamphlet, it's signed by William Brewster -

one of the Pilgrims' ringleaders - and it's a debate about

whether to split from the Church of England, heretical stuff.

But pamphlets like these could be safely printed here in Leiden

and sent back to England to stir up discontent.

The city seemed heaven-sent.

But being an immigrant in someone else's country wasn't easy,

and after ten years it looked like Catholic Spain might invade

Protestant Holland.

Time for the English Puritans to move on.

The Pilgrims set sail from Holland in 1620, next stop America.

Well, OK, not quite.

Next stop, Southampton, and from there

they set sail for America

in a ship called the Speedwell.

Confused?

Well, a few days into their journey,

the Speedwell sprang a leak.

So they had to go back to Plymouth,

where they transferred onto

a new ship called...

the Mayflower.

This time, the next stop

for our intrepid explorers

really was...America.

# I like to be in America

# OK by me in America

# Everything's free in America... #

Even troublesome Puritans were welcome in this new English colony.

But not all the women and children made it to the promised land.

THEY CHATTER IN DUTCH

-Hello, Ria.

-Hello, Tessa.

'Ria Koet and her family are descendants of Mayflower

'passenger Moses Fletcher.

'Moses died in America before his own family could join him.'

His family stayed in Leiden

and they stayed, and stayed,

and stayed many generations. And so now,

we are living here in Holland in Leiden, all in Leiden.

Do you wish you were American, or are you happy to be Dutch?

No, I am very happy to be a real Leiden woman.

And Leiden sons. Yes, we love Leiden and I stay here.

But, of course,

if we go really far back in history, you are in fact British.

-Yes.

-Well, long live the Dutch.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you. Bye.

The Pilgrim Fathers have left a living legacy in Holland,

but they also took a surprising tradition from Leiden with them.

A tradition we think of as quintessentially American -

Thanksgiving.

Every year since 1574, Protestant Leiden has held

a community feast to give thanks for the defeat of Catholic Spain.

The Pilgrims took the Dutch ritual of Thanksgiving

across the Atlantic, and it's come full circle.

Now every year, Leiden celebrates American Thanksgiving.

ALL: One nation under God...

The Pilgrims left Britain and headed east to Europe,

but they ended up going west to America.

It was the beginning of our special relationship with the New World,

and the rest, as they say, is history.

Britons looked longingly across the ocean

long before the Pilgrims made their voyages.

We've explored our own seas for millennia.

Before sail it was paddle power.

Now six teams are reliving the experience

of Britain's early explorers.

Whoa! He's literally right under the boat.

There he is.

They're trying to row right around our isles.

That's the White Cliffs of Dover.

That's not bad, is it?

They've chalked up the first major landmark,

but some 2,000 miles of struggle lie ahead.

I've got five blisters on my hand already,

and it's only day two.

They hurt quite a bit, so I've got to wear these giant gloves.

Our 21st-century explorers

soon discover determination isn't enough...

..if your luck runs out.

Electrical failure means this crew lose radio and navigation.

Their voyage is over.

Soon, more boats call for help and drop out.

Only two crews are left,

trying to row around Britain.

A voyage of exploration

facing the fierce waters off Portland Bill...

..the whirlpool of the Corryvreckan...

..and the tidal races of the Pentland Firth.

Wayward explorers must also be wary of sandbanks.

-This is the fourth time we've done this today.

-Fourth time.

Fourth time we've...run aground.

And open seas usher in sea monsters unknown to ancient explorers.

That's quite a big beastie. Be a bit of a wash after that, Josh,

-do you think?

-Maybe a splash. SHIP'S HORN BLARES

With so many hazards to navigate,

no wonder seafarers worry about exactly where they are.

That's why lighthouses were a welcome sight for explorers,

both a comfort and a warning.

Mariners' lonely companions for centuries,

bright beacons of hope, staking out our edge.

But what about before the lights, in the dark nights of ancient history?

Before charts, no-one knew the shape or position of our isles.

To see how, 2,500 years ago,

a Greek explorer first put us on the map,

I'm basing myself in Cornwall.

Around 320BC, a seafarer from the Mediterranean landed here,

a man who literally penned our isle into existence.

This remarkable seafarer was

embarking on a circumnavigation of our isles that would become

so legendary his story would be retold for generations.

His name was Pytheas the Greek,

and he's one of my greatest heroes.

He was an explorer eager to discover the fabled "Tin Islands" -

the mysterious lands where the ancient Greeks sourced

tin in the Bronze Age.

A voyage to uncharted territory

that Pytheas named "Prettanike".

The exact details of Pytheas the Greek's odyssey have been lost,

but he left a series of measurements that would eventually allow

our isles to be mapped, and as a map man that's what excites me the most.

Like navigators before him,

we know Pytheas looked to the skies for guidance.

But not just the distant stars,

he used the sun too.

Pytheas travelled with an instrument called a "gnomon".

A stick much like a sundial, the gnomon cast a shadow

when raised vertically in the midday sun.

Imagine I'm the gnomon.

The further south we travel,

the higher in the sky the sun is at noon

and the shorter the shadow.

The further north we travel,

the lower the sun is in the sky at noon and the shadow lengthens.

By looking at the length of the shadow cast by his stick,

his gnomon, Pytheas could get an indication of how far north

or south he had travelled.

But it was only an indication.

To convert shadow lengths into a precise position on the globe

would take some clever calculations.

Mathematicians cracked the code that would help them

to convert the measurements of the sun's shadow,

taken by Pytheas the Greek,

into that critical navigational tool - lines of latitude.

Lines of latitude run round the earth parallel to the equator,

a measure of how far north

or south you are.

Latitude is crucial to making maps.

Using Greek trigonometry of angles,

and the shadow lengths from Pytheas

for latitude,

early map-makers went to work.

Without even visiting Britain, scholars could use

Pytheas's raw data to plot the location of our isles.

It had taken one epic voyage and some pretty epic brain work,

but finally Britain could be marked on a map.

And what a map.

Classical scholars pieced together a remarkable picture of our isles,

that endured for centuries, using stick measurements and maths.

Cornwall was big in their minds,

revealing its importance to explorers,

but Scotland needs some work!

After thousands of years of effort,

we've mapped every inch of the globe.

But most of the planet still remains a mystery.

The oceans are explorers' biggest challenge.

And Britain leads the way,

as scientists try to discover how many fish are left in our seas.

To explore this conundrum,

experts embark from Ullapool.

Andy Torbet is joining an underwater mission

that's been under way for over half a century.

Like generations of scientific explorers before me,

I'm setting sail in search of fish.

I've signed on with the Scotia,

a research vessel that studies fish stocks in Scottish waters.

Time to cast our nets into a stretch of water

that's been explored with scientific precision.

Every year the same procedure, but every year a different catch.

Since the 1950s, they've been comparing catches year on year.

Concerns about fish stocks are nothing new.

The numbers of our nation's old favourite,

cod, have been falling for decades.

I've got here the logbook from the 1960s with the records of hauls.

And finally a crew's report with comments like -

"Whiting was fairly numerous at all stations, cod was rather scarce".

Scottish scientists are old hands at counting fish.

1956 saw the first purpose-built vessel.

And here she is.

The SS Explorer.

The Explorer's pioneering voyages provide clues to how today's

scientists try to forecast fish stocks.

For the first time,

age-old techniques were married with hi tech.

Now, the Explorer is washed up in Edinburgh

somewhat the worse for wear.

Helping to restore her is scientist and old shipmate John Dunn.

The Explorer was very, very strongly built,

and I would quite happily, in the day,

have gone anywhere in her, and indeed did do.

All of our fittings and fixtures were good quality.

The phones were very heavy Bakelite.

The Explorer was right up there with the best.

This equipment from another age did point the way to the future.

She was one of the very first fisheries' research vessels

anywhere to sail with a computer.

It had quite large pieces of valve-operated machinery

and ticker tape, and it had a teleprinter chattering away,

but it did manage to deal with huge amounts of data,

which otherwise had to be done by hand, and number-crunched by hand.

It was the start of something which revolutionised everything.

Computers are now at the heart of our fish forecast,

processing data dragged up from the deep.

Detailed measurements are recorded and fed into computer simulations

which help predict likely fish stocks.

For biologist Coby Needle, a crucial factor in their analysis

is the age of the fish we've caught.

To determine the age we take out the otolith,

or one of the otoliths from the fish, which are

ear bones. So you go in through the gills

and pull out the otoliths that way.

We then cut the otoliths in two, slice it down the middle

and look at them under a microscope.

And otoliths are very much like tree rings - every year the animal

lays down another bony ring onto the otolith, so you can essentially

count up the rings and work out from that how old that fish was.

This meticulous research

will help set the all-important fishing quotas.

The catches landed by trawlermen

are also fed into the computer models.

But these guys have their favourite fishing grounds,

and they stick to the areas with the largest stocks.

In contrast, the Scotia trawls all around Scottish waters,

helping build up a better picture of fish populations.

As a survey vessel, we need to fish in areas both where

there are a lot of fish and also areas where there may have been fish

in the past - in the '50s and '60s -

but there are no longer fish any more.

If we were running a commercial fishing vessel,

we wouldn't do this operation here, we would go where the fish are,

but then you might get an overly optimistic impression

of how many fish there are in the sea.

The latest findings do indicate

some recovery in North Sea cod stocks

as co-operation between scientists and trawlermen deepens.

We may never be sure about the future of our fish but,

thanks to this exploration of the deep,

we're not completely in the dark.

We're charting a course around our explorers' coast.

On epic voyages, adventure becomes a way of life.

Muscling their way around our shores,

Jason McKinlay

and Josh Tarr fall into a shipboard routine that explorers

over the centuries would recognise.

How are you feeling, Jase?

Can't see you, mate.

They've got to work with the sea to make it their home.

Which means housekeeping.

Washing clothes...

..and themselves.

After weeks away from loved ones,

Jason's suffering in Scottish weather.

Roughly halfway round Britain,

they've struggled to reach Skye.

But it's pausing for reflection that gives explorers the greatest pain.

Like adventurers of old, it's not what they endure,

it's what they leave behind.

I miss my kids and my wife terribly.

Sarah really understands what I'm like deep down, and this

is going to be good for us, not just good for me in the long run.

She builds up a lot of Brownie points doing this, by the way.

I've just had to sort of get used to it

and accept that's part of him.

I know that if he's not doing these challenges

he's a misery to live with.

So I knew what I was letting myself in for when I married him.

Josh and Jason have learned to rely on each other.

The bond they've forged has brought them to a key turning point.

KLAXON BLARES

The joy of reaching the coast off John o'Groats

means they're heading south.

Now, each stroke takes them closer to the finish at Tower Bridge.

If they do make it, they'll have done it together.

But some explorers fail because they fall out.

On the trail of travelling companions who famously went

separate ways, I'm in Falmouth.

200 years ago, an artist adventurer came to this coast,

a young man with a grand plan.

That entrepreneurial explorer became the country's most ambitious

landscape artist - William Daniell.

In 1813, William Daniell began a mighty project.

Before photography, Daniell planned to depict the majesty of our coast.

He created over 300 illustrations.

An explorer's guide.

From Ilfracombe...

..to Fingal's Cave...

..and beyond.

Artworks to be sold in a series entitled

"A Voyage Round Great Britain".

Today, originals hang here at Falmouth.

Daniell's work captures the coast of 200 years ago,

spectacular and ripe for exploration.

But part of the picture is missing.

Daniell didn't take on his epic voyage alone,

he had a companion, now almost forgotten,

a writer named Richard Ayton.

Ayton's words were meant to accompany Daniell's drawings.

They set off in the year 1813.

The first location - Land's End.

And here is Ayton's description.

"This western promontory presents a very grand and striking scene;

"the rocks hang about it in huge, disjointed masses

"and are tumbled together in magnificent confusion."

The scene is exhilarating both in words and in picture.

Daniell's illustration shows a lighthouse.

That original lighthouse has since been demolished.

William Daniell's partnership with his writer wouldn't last either.

To see why, I'm retracing their footsteps

with artist Charles Newington.

We're picking up their route at Portreath.

Daniell was inspired by what he saw in Portreath.

And, two centuries later, so is Charles.

I'm fascinated to see what you're selecting from the view, Charles.

Just what Daniell would've been doing.

Daniell was hunting for

the beautiful view all the time, and, um,

this one rather does it for me here.

OK, this wonderful hillside here with the great bite taken out of it

and this extraordinary sort of nose

in the middle. It's fantastic.

He was bringing the beauty,

the diversity of the coast

and celebrating it in a way that it had never been celebrated before.

Yes, you've got it, I think.

There was nothing like it before.

He produced the ultimate,

best travel guide to Britain you could imagine.

200 years ago,

full-colour reproductions of Daniell's pencil sketches

took painstaking effort, back in his studio,

using the aquatint process.

Copper plates were coated in fine powder to give a textured finish.

Beeswax was applied and burned to blacken.

The original pencil drawing was placed on top.

Pressing transferred an imprint of pencil graphite.

Those lines were then hand-etched into the copper.

After an acid bath,

the ink was applied for printing onto high-quality paper.

Repeated steps built up the full hand-coloured image.

That laborious process was expensive.

The artist desperately needed wealthy buyers.

But his writer, Richard Ayton,

was interested in the poor, not the rich.

Ayton's passion for gritty reality

was spelt out in their trip to the tin mines at St Agnes.

Ayton gives us an account of their arrival.

He wrote, "There was no water in the harbour,

"so that we were obliged to land on the rocks.

"The cliffs above us were strangely shattered,

"and hollowed into innumerable cavities

"by the best of all hole-makers,

"the Cornish miners".

Look at that.

And here are those holes.

This working landscape was ignored by the artist,

but not by the writer.

With no illustration to see the industry

that captivated Ayton in 1813,

we have to rely on photos from much later.

I'm with local historian Roger Radcliffe.

It is really quite a miserable kind of place,

you've got smoke, tin stamps here working.

So the noise was something that you have to appreciate.

The stream would be running nearly black

at times, with this, tainting the bay.

Back then, it really was quite a grim place to work,

and I don't think it's any mistake that we don't have

a nice illustration of St Agnes.

I think it was pretty ugly at that time,

and that's what we've got to think of.

Ayton's words painted the grim picture

that the artist Daniell ignored.

Daniell planned hundreds of luxury prints.

Each new stretch of the journey around Britain had to be

paid for by sales of the PREVIOUS volumes.

But Ayton's writing on the workers' plight risked alienating

the rich buyers Daniell relied on.

As the voyage continued,

their accounts grew further and further apart.

Before they were halfway round our coast, sketcher and scribe split up.

We don't know if Ayton jumped or was pushed,

but the artist wrote him out of the picture.

Daniell, taking over the writing duties himself, says,

"Mr Ayton's account of the voyage is to be

"considered as terminating at the close of the preceding volume."

After departing from Land's End, it took ten years for Daniell

to complete his masterwork - A Voyage Round Great Britain.

Now two centuries old, the volumes inspired generations of explorers.

Industry given an artistic gloss.

And landscapes rendered with romantic splendour.

His epic voyage saw William Daniell elevated to the Royal Academy.

But writer Richard Ayton left his best work behind him on the coast.

In 1823, the year Daniell completed the journey

they had started together, Ayton died.

A forgotten explorer for the truth.

It's easy to think that days of exploration are over, but not so.

Epic journeys are still taking place

and new heroes are in the making.

Our earliest explorers would pay tribute to these crews,

who've tried to match their exploits

propelled by muscle power.

Like those seafarers of old,

they'll return with tall tales of the sea.

We went up north into Scotland,

behind us was a Force 8 gale,

and that took us nicely all the way down to the Corryvreckan Gulf -

the home of the notorious whirlpool.

Lucky for us we didn't actually get too close to it,

so that helped us slingshot across to...

-We rowed over two of them.

-Little ones but not the big one.

-No.

Oh!

Oh, Jase, look.

Now one boat's almost come full circle around Britain.

After 2,000 miles of struggle they finish first,

in a record time for a four-man crew.

CHEERING AND HORNS BLARING

26 days, 9 hours, 9 minutes and 4 seconds.

An achievement explorers from any age would be proud of.

Come on, let's hear it, boys! Yeah!

Well done, lads.

The adventure's not quite over though.

15 days later, I'm on the Thames.

Not many wait around for those in second place, but we do.

For me the greatest explorations

are not necessarily about coming first,

they're about not giving up, pressing on, taking your time

and coming home with the story of a lifetime.

Josh Tarr and Jason McKinlay have explored the edge of our isles,

the only other crew to finish.

It took 41 days,

the quickest time ever for a pair.

With muscle and sinew they've written their names

into the record books.

WHOOPING, WHISTLING AND APPLAUSE

Explorers come and go, but their legacy lives on,

their indomitable spirit has shaped our island's history.

This is The Explorers' Coast and it's been one heck of a journey.

CHEERING

BOAT HORN BLARES

Fantastic!