Episode 1 Iolo's Welsh Sea

'To the North, West and South, Wales is surrounded by sea.

'This sea covers a hidden landscape full of extraordinary wildlife.

'It also has secret history.'

No-one really knows

where this ship was from or where it was going to.

'The Welsh sea has shaped some wonderful unspoiled landscapes.

'And these landscapes change according to the mood of the sea.

'The sea around Wales has one of the biggest tidal ranges

'in the world and as a result produces pretty powerful carbons.

'It supplies food...'

Oh, that's a nice one. Look at that. It is a nice big one, that one.

'..pleasure

'and energy.

'I'm on a sea journey of Wales,

'from Deeside in the North to the Severn Estuary in the South.

'I'm meeting people who work on the sea...'

It must be colder out in these conditions all the time.

-Well, believe it or not, today is quite a nice day.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

'..those who have a passion for the sea...'

Imagine seeing that for the first time ever.

I normally go to work on Monday morning with dirty nails.

'..and discovering the amazing wildlife that lives in the sea.'

How fantastic is that!

With the size of nearly 6,000 square miles,

Welsh territorial waters are nearly double the size of Wales.

It's a vast area open to the elements

and a place when nature's energy can be harnessed.

I'm heading out of Mostyn Docks on Deeside

on a crew transportation vessel that takes construction

and service technicians out to wind turbines off the North Wales coast.

The sea today is rough because of strong northerly winds.

But the exposed nature of the location and the regularity

of high winds is precisely why the turbines have been placed here.

The first turbines were constructed here over ten years ago.

Another 160 turbines are currently being built at a site

appropriately called Gwynt y Mor, a Welsh phrase meaning the sea wind.

John Davies, on the left, overseas the maintenance of the turbines

once they're built.

And Jon Darling oversees the construction.

What strikes me straightaway is we are six or seven kilometres offshore, or whatever we are,

how on earth do you erect a turbine in the middle of the sea?

Erm, with a lot of planning, I think, is the simplest way of putting it.

Gwynt y Mor, for example,

has been on the drawing board for over a decade.

We're now in the water constructing it.

A lot of engineering design goes into how we are going to build

and construct it. We have a monopile, it's driven into the seabed.

What's a monopile? Like a big jackhammer?

It's a steel tube that is driven into the seabed

and that gives you the stability then to put your turbine on top of that.

And maintenance, John, what is that?

Is that just coming out, keeping an eye,

making sure things are all right?

These turbines have a service once a year

via a specialist team of technicians.

We're based at the port of Mostyn.

It's quite complex and fancy machinery

but it's quite a simple service - oil changes,

checking the condition of the turbine.

Have you ever come out onto one of these

and all of a sudden, there has been a change in weather

and you're stuck, thinking, "How am I going to get back?"

We've not had that yet.

Each turbine has got a pack of sleeping bags and food.

If that eventuality did occur, they would be all right for the night

but we try and stay a good 24 hours ahead of the weather.

So, if there is a storm brewing,

-you just bring everybody off, do you?

-Yes, that's right.

-Abandon work and bring everybody back?

-Yep.

'The turbines are huge constructions.

'It's between 15 and 20 metres

'to the top of the yellow platforms alone,

'and up to 150 metres to the top of the turbines.

'It's just as well that there are lifts inside them

'to take the technicians to the top.

'Apprentice Natasha Frost is one of them.'

What took you into that?

-That's a pretty unusual job.

-Well, I did a bit of engineering in college.

And obviously, I live in Rhyl, I have seen them going up

and I've always been interested in them.

So, I saw the advertisement and thought I might as well give it a go,

and I got the job.

So, you can see these out of your bedroom window, almost?

-Yes, basically, yeah.

-Well done, you.

It will be interesting, it will be very different.

Yeah. I was a lifeguard before that

-so it's very different to anything I have done before.

-Oh, wow.

-Well, that's handy if you fall in, anyway.

-Yeah, I'll just swim.

-You'll swim back home after that!

-Yeah.

When it becomes fully operational during 2014,

Gwynt y Mor will be the second largest wind farm in the world,

capable of powering 400,000 homes.

That's around a third of the total number of homes in Wales.

Areas have also been identified as sites to build even more turbines

further offshore in the Irish Sea between Wales and the Isle of Man.

They'll cost millions to construct

and will reduce dependency on carbon dioxide producing power stations.

But the seascape of Wales won't quite be the same as it was.

The Conwy Estuary is overlooked by the magnificent

backdrop of Snowdonia.

It's a harbour that is used by all sorts of pleasure boats

and fishing vessels.

'I'm setting off with fisherman Carl Davies and his crew of one, Sean,

'roughly three hours before high tide

'to maximise time out at sea

'and to ensure there is enough time to return to harbour

'before low water.

'The correct timing of departure with the tide is critical,

'as there are dangerous sandbanks in the estuary.'

So, you've got to follow this...

line all the way out this way, have you?

Yes, that's the main channel that goes through there.

At this stage of the tide, we have to go right around.

But there are a couple of short cuts.

There's one here that we can use two hours each side of high water.

And then, there's another short cut here

but that one is filling in, the sands are changing all the time.

Carl is a pot fisherman and mainly catches lobsters and crabs.

'This morning we're heading for the Great Orme near Llandudno.'

Nice place to put the pots out, Carl,

-right underneath the Great Orme.

-That's it, yeah.

It's lovely, isn't it? All the Kittiwakes going around, look.

'The pots are actually baskets with fish bait.'

That's not bad, is it, bringing them up two a pot?

-That's a nice...

-Yeah, nice one.

..female fish.

It's moulted, probably three or four weeks ago, it's pretty hard so...

How do you know that's female as opposed to a male, then?

She's got a really broad tail, smaller claws than the male,

and she's got little feathery bits there

whereas the male has hard appendages.

Ah right, cos later on they'll have the eggs along here, won't they?

Yeah.

'Lobsters eat pretty much anything that they can catch or

'scavenge including shellfish, starfish and crabs.

'They'll even eat seaweed and dead fish.

'So it's little wonder that they end up in baited baskets.'

Hey that's a nice crab that one, isn't it?

Look at the size on that.

Meat in those claws, boys, look at that. Wow!

There we are, in you go.

Couple of sandwiches off that one.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, nothing like a good old crab sandwich, lovely.

With the first catch collected, Carl and Sean re-submerge the pots.

It's a simple but ingenious set up.

The pots are linked together with rope with a weight at one end

and a float at the other.

You wouldn't want to get tangled up in the rope

or you'd quickly be 20m under.

On our way to the next pots, we get a nice surprise,

we're joined by a pod of dolphins.

Right in here, look.

Oh, they are bottlenose too, aren't they?

Oh, wow.

Do you see them often out here - bottlenose dolphins?

We do see them occasionally in-shore here, but more often than not,

further off shore.

You're quite lucky today to see them this close in shore, really.

It's the first time I've ever seen bottlenose dolphins

off this area, really.

I mean, I associate them with being further south and off Newquay and

Aberystwyth and all down Cardigan Bay

but it's lovely to see them up here.

'The dolphins have come to the bay near Llandudno to hunt for fish.

'They confirm that the hidden landscape in the sea here is

'full of life.

'There are also additional clues in Carl's fishing pots.'

So those are eggs there, are they, Carl?

Yes, yeah, cuttlefish eggs.

Wow, there's some more inside as well.

I suppose a lobster pot like that is ideal for them, brilliant.

Scorpion fish.

They've got spines on here that they can raise up.

But you can imagine that at the bottom of the sea,

in amongst some stones, really well camouflaged there.

A cod in there, look. Little thing under the chin here.

Nice fish, cod, very nice fish.

Off he goes.

Greater dogfish this one, isn't it now?

Greater spotted dogfish, yes.

Greater spotted dogfish, that's right.

Bull huss is the nickname.

Bull huss, yeah, I love the way you call them bull husses.

He's not very happy.

He's not very happy so I'm going to put him back in, boys.

Greater spotted dogfish, look at that.

Lovely, lovely fish. Back in you go, go on.

Off he goes.

'There are around 500 commercial fishing vessels in Wales.

'The majority are small like Carl's which fish close to

'shore for lobsters and crabs.

'Some of the catch is sold for local consumption

'but as transport links get better and quicker, more and more

'of it is being exported to the rest of the UK and Europe - even Asia.

'So it's important that it is a regulated industry to ensure

'a healthy and sustainable population of fishermen and fish.

'Because below the surface, there's

'a hidden wealth that's very precious.'

Shoals of sea bass swim close to our shores.

Small-spotted catsharks patrol the sea bed.

Brown crabs are at home scavenging for food amongst the rocks.

Species like cod and spiny spider crabs are all taken as food,

if their size permits.

We also catch black bream.

And prawns.

If we must eat them then we must ensure there's plenty of them.

And return and protect non-commercial

species like scorpion fish.

The sea around Wales can be challenging waters to navigate.

Not least because of big tides.

One of the strongest currents in Britain flows in The Swellies,

a section of the Menai Straits under the two bridges.

The Menai Suspension

and Britannia bridges link the mainland with Anglesey

and between them, there are hidden rocks and shallow banks underwater.

This makes navigation hazardous for boats.

There are also strong currents during changing tides, and unless a

boat has sufficient power, it can't move against the fast flowing water.

This is exactly what happened in 1953, when the old battleship

HMS Conway ran aground near the suspension bridge.

Richard Jones is the current Menai Strait pilot.

My grandfather and great-grandfather were the pilots who were actually

on board the Conway on the fateful day in 1953 when she was lost.

Originally, the Conway, she was a training ship,

an old wooden wall battleship.

They had decided to establish a shore-based school

very near Plas Newydd in 1953. They were bringing her back to

take her through to Birkenhead, they wanted to take her to do some

refurbishment work in a dry dock there. They had to go through

on the slack water on the biggest tides of the year in order to have

enough water - she was a very deep draughted vessel to go through here.

Very shortly after that the tide would be turning

and what happens in the Menai Straits is it's coming up

in Liverpool Bay while it's starting to drop in

Caernarfon Bay and very quickly the tide is accelerating down hill, and

so soon after entering, the tide was starting to build up against them.

My great-grandfather had already advised that they should enter

earlier than the time planned by the captain but they wouldn't listen.

And he also requested a more powerful tug,

she was being towed through.

They got just this side of the Swellie rock, through the narrow

point, and the tide was running very, very strong in this area here.

A very turbulent flow and they got to a certain stage and she was just

stood dead in the water basically and she wasn't going anywhere.

Eventually, with the turbulent tidal flow, she took a sheer to

starboard and she went ashore just on the shore over here.

Even after 60 years,

parts of the HMS Conway still exist in the Menai Straits.

I've decided to look for them.

I'm diving during slack water when the water currents are not strong.

If a big ship can't sail against the tide,

I certainly can't swim against it.

On the seabed I find pieces of the ship's timber covered with sea life.

I always find it amazing how wildlife takes over

immediately something sinks and this is no different.

And of course, the Menai Straits has a rapid current. It flows

through here back and forth many times every day so that means

that it's nutrient rich and it's no surprise to come down and see

all kinds of sponges and starfish and anemones and fish here.

It's a very, very rich environment,

especially on an old wreck like this.

'In fact, the Menai Straits is one of the richest wildlife

'habitats in Wales.

'There are many different species of sponges, sea squirts,

'crabs and other creatures living here.'

Even though this warship was mainly built of wood

and a lot of that has burnt away, you do find the odd bit of metal

here and there. Here's a big bit, I don't know, it

might have been a mast, I doubt it, the mast would probably have

been wooden, I'm not quite sure what it was but, like everything

else down here now it's covered in sponges and especially starfish.

I don't think I've ever seen so many starfish in one place in my life.

The sea is used for all kinds of leisure activities.

One of the most physically demanding sports is coastal

and offshore rowing.

There are over 30 sea rowing clubs in Wales.

Trireme, Ynys Mon Rowing Club is based in Bull Bay

near Amlwch, Anglesey.

OK, row on, firm pressure on reds.

Medium pressure.

How often will you come out, then, and practice like this as a team?

We come out every Tuesday night.

Is there a league then or what?

Yes, there's a league.

And how far do you have to go? Do you go all around Wales?

Erm, we go as far down as...

I think probably Newquay is the furthest.

Oh, right.

OK, and together.

So if you're in a race, how far will you go or does it vary a lot?

It varies quite a lot.

So you've got to build up stamina and speed have you for this.

Yeah, a lot of it's about endurance when you do the races.

Yeah.

OK, it's getting very lumpy now, girls, OK? Hold on, Iolo.

Hold on.

'We're heading for East Mouse Island, which is

'more of a lump of rock than an island..

Try to keep the balance if you can.

'And with strong currents surrounding it,

'it's the rowing equivalent of running up hill.'

That's good.

Feathered blades, please, if we can.

OK, medium pressure.

'Sea rowing is an increasingly popular sport,

'and apparently a 12st person can burn more

'than 300 calories during 30 minutes of rowing.

'At 15 stones, I weigh quite a bit more than that,

'so hopefully I'll burn even more.

Watch the shoulder in front of you.

Excellent, just keep following Tina's shoulder

-Oh, I mucked up then.

-Don't look at your oar!

I want to look at my oar or I'll miss the sea!

Good, excellent.

Look at Tina in front of you.

I'd rather watch the oar! I mess up if I don't watch the oar.

I know it's not the way to do it! It's either that or mess up.

Get on, girls.

Oh, Porpoise, Can you see it?

How far away?

There you are! There's a mum and baby together.

Is there? There are two?

Puffing pigs, they used to call them, wasn't it?

Cos they're short, fat little things and they come up to puff.

Puffing pigs, it's over here now. Oh, wow!

Yeah, right by us here.

-And that's why we do it.

-Yeah, I can see why you do it.

'The great thing about spending time out on the water is that you

'often see great things.

'Porpoise are common around the seas of Wales.

'The north Anglesey coast is a good place to see them.

'And that's because they like to come close to shore near rocky

'headlands to hunt for fish.'

The sea is a gateway for merchants and travellers.

One of Wales' biggest ports is at Holyhead.

It's the busiest ferry terminal in the United Kingdom

north of the English Channel.

The port has five terminals with over two million passengers

passing through them on their way to and from Ireland every year.

As it's a deep water port and doesn't empty at low tide,

boats can dock here 24 hours a day.

In addition to the ferries, huge cruise ships, fishermen,

and other types of vessels use the port.

A quarter of the working population of Holyhead works here.

Alan Haynes is one of them.

Big ships in unfamiliar ports always need local pilots to guide them

through safe channels to their moorings.

So you're the pilot are you?

No, no, I'm the pilot boat operator, that's my title in this job.

Pilot boat operator, and I'm on call 24 hours a day, 365 days in a year.

And the pilot boat does what?

Take the pilot to a ship or go out and get him off the ship.

Oh, OK, and the pilot on the ship guides them in?

-He guides them in.

-Right, OK.

I've been doing this job for 22 years now,

and about three weeks ago we had a cruise ship come here and

he couldn't berth alongside Anglesey on the jetty so we had to go out,

and I went out to take the pilot off the ship and the weather was so bad

I couldn't get him off - the first time in 22 years I couldn't get

the pilot off or on the ship, so he had to go to Ireland with the ship.

Well, I tell you what, you wouldn't believe that now, would you?

It's flat calm, it's lovely weather.

If you can see the lighthouse on the breakwater,

sometimes when it's rough from North Westerly winds,

you won't see that breakwater when you're in the trough,

and when you come up on top of the wave, you're looking down on it.

'Holyhead Port requires constant maintenance both on dock

'and out at sea.

'Some of the most important pieces of equipment are buoys,

'which are crucial for navigation.

Hugh Owen and his crew are changing a faulty one.'

You've put one buoy down, Hugh and what are you going to do now,

pick the old one up, is it?

Yeah, retrieve that one and take it back in.

That's a spare one. If any of the buoys break overnight,

-we can put that one in.

-Right, OK

The flashing sequence can be changed on that one

-to any sequence required.

-Right, and what,

there's a different sequence on every buoy as you come in?

Every buoy in the harbour is a different sequence

so you know exactly which buoy is which one.

And by that you know exactly where you are with reference to

harbour entrance.

Exactly. Even if you lose everything and there's fog,

if you're close to a buoy you can tell what's there, which one it is.

Always amazes me that these buoys float because they're

so heavy, aren't they?

Yeah, and there's a lot of chain on them as well.

There's about 20m of chain on it as well.

-And that's to anchor it down to the bottom.

-Yeah.

And is this the work that you usually do?

I thought tug boats,

you sort of dragged the big ships in and out of harbour

and what have you.

Yeah, we do all kinds of different work, we do a lot of buoy work.

We're going on Saturday to help a ship in and out of Mostyn,

we tow barges, pipelines, whatever's required normally.

-So have you always been a seaman?

-Yes.

Spent your whole life on the sea?

Well, my father was a tug captain so even when I was 15 I used to

go on school holidays on the boat with him, you know.

-Oh, did you?

-It's something I always wanted to do

and it's a good career for this part of the world, there's not many

good jobs ashore and if you go to sea you can earn a lot more money.

Not far from Holyhead

and further along the south west coast of Anglesey, there's a small

tidal island known as Cribinau, and on it lies the church of St Cwyfan.

The church can only be reached at low tide,

because the sea has eroded away the surrounding rock.

It's an impressive example of the erosive power of the sea.

And in the bay surrounding the island,

you'll find sea life typical of similar bays on the coast of Wales.

Hermit crabs and shore crabs are common.

Also lobsters.

There are also unusual-looking fish like pipefish.

And tompot blennies,

strange looking fish with tentacles above their eyes.

The sea life around Wales is both diverse and extraordinary.

These are sea hares, big, big sea slugs.

You can see another one just over here now.

And they're gathering to lay eggs,

they lay their eggs on this seaweed here.

And I've seen over 20, there may be a lot, lot more than that here.

All gathering to lay their eggs,

to tie their eggs around the seaweed all at one time.

And as sea slugs go, these are big ones,

they come in all shapes and sizes, some very, very colourful and this

is one of the biggest and commonest you'll get around the Welsh coast.

Heading southwest from Porth Cwyfan, I pass Llanddwyn Island,

another part-time island, which is

only cut off from the mainland at high tide.

Although the white tower on the left looks like an old windmill, it's

in fact an old beacon that guided ships heading for the Menai Straits.

The current beacon on the right is smaller and stands in front

of cottages which were built to house ship pilots.

Llanddwyn and Newborough dunes are near the Southern

entrance to the Menai Straits.

While in the past the ships passing through the Straits serviced

the slate quarries of Snowdonia,

many of the industries today on the Menai revolve around tourism.

You don't need to dive to discover the wildlife

living in the seas around Wales.

You can see some of our sea species

in the aquaria of Anglesey's Sea Zoo.

There are crawfish, crustaceans related to lobsters

but with tiny claws.

Turbot, our largest flatfish.

And the strange-looking cuttlefish, which isn't a fish

but an animal related to octopus and squid.

The water in these tanks is pumped in directly from the Menai Straits,

and the quality has to be perfect to keep the plants and animals healthy.

The condition of the water is checked regularly

by Anglesey Sea Zoo's Dylan Evans and Frankie Hobro.

By doing this now, you're looking for any pollutants or anything,

like a warning sign almost, are you?

The majority of water, as you know, comes in from this side,

from the south side of the strait, so the strait completely

empties every six to seven days, it's totally refreshed.

So a few times a year, along with other people who take similar

samples, we take our own baseline samples, just to compare that

we've got the situation within the tanks really reasonably accurately.

The great thing about that of course is that you get

the changes in temperature, seasonality,

you also get things like plankton that the animals can feed on.

It also allows us to have stock rotation,

so nothing has to stay in captivity forever.

The other great thing environmentally, of course,

about using sea water, is that we don't have to mix our own water.

By mix your own water, what do you mean by that?

Generally, you have to import water from somewhere like the Dead Sea.

-Do you?

-Yeah, where it's heavily exploited already.

With salt in order to mix the water properly.

I'd have thought, say you had an aquarium in Plymouth,

that you would have pumped in water from the sea by there.

-Very, very rare.

-And is that because of the pollution in their seas?

-Compared to the Menai.

-Some places it's because they're

so coastal that they would have problems maintaining water

quality with the amount of water they require.

We've been approached, haven't we, about selling sea water?

We do sell to other aquaria, weirdly, yeah.

So you sell Menai Straits water to other aquaria?

-We do, to hobbyists as well.

-That's fantastic.

That's right.

I always knew Welsh water was exported,

but what I didn't know was that it also included Welsh sea water.

It's a surprising addition to the hidden value of our sea.

Above the surface, the beauty is clear for all to see.

But below there's an even richer landscape with some

extraordinary wildlife.

'Next time, I will be discovering more about the wealth

'of the Welsh sea around the Llyn Peninsula in a kayak.'

Is that a seal? Popped up to have a look.

'I'll be finding an old wreck in the sea off Porth Dinllaen.'

This is all Welsh slate, the ship itself has all but gone.

'I'll be sailing from Pwllheli.'

This boat only goes out racing with the aim of winning.

'And I'll be finding a Mediterranean shrimp

'living off the coast of Abersoch.'

Why it's here, don't ask. Nobody really knows, but there he is.