Episode 1 Monty Halls' Great Irish Escape

'A wild ocean, teeming with life,

'the sun in the sky and a crazy dog for company.'

Rubes...

'Just another day at the office.'

This is the coast of Connemara in the west of Ireland.

Some of the largest animals on the planet migrate through these waters.

That was moderately close.

And on land, the people are a special breed too.

Cheers, mate. Whoo!

For the next six months, I'm going back to my roots as a marine biologist

working for an Irish whale and dolphin conservation group.

-You don't want to burst the intestines cos it gets very messy then.

-Yeah.

GAS ESCAPES NOISILY

It's the chance of a lifetime, to discover more

about the extraordinary animals swimming off our shores.

And it's great fun, did I mention it was great fun?

Yes, whoo-hoo!

Fantastic!

It's mid-April as Reuben and I leave our Bristol home

and head off on a new adventure into one of the wildest

and most beautiful parts of Europe.

If you go to the very western edge of Europe, you get Ireland.

And if you go to the western edge of Ireland, you get Galway.

And if you go to the western edge of Galway, you get Connemara.

And on the western edge of Connemara, dipping its toes

in the wild waters of the Atlantic, is Roundstone

and just tucked in next to Roundstone is this tiny little island, Inishnee Island,

and it's where Reuben and I are spending the next six months.

By the time I leave, in October, the people who live on this remote coast

will be battening down the hatches again for winter.

In the meantime, I can look forward to a long and hopefully hot summer

with the regattas, festivals, the culture...

And, of course, the wildlife.

They have significant hare issues on the island, there we go.

I mean, look at the size of that.

What do you think, Rubes?

HE LAUGHS

Rubes thinks he's died and gone to heaven.

We're going to be in that little cottage that looks out over the sea and he'll be surrounded by hares.

So this, I think, is what dog heaven looks like.

Rubes, ready?

He's just mesmerised with the hares.

Where are the hares, Rubes?

Right, let's go and explore.

And in we go.

Oh, beautiful, beautiful.

Do you know one of the nice things about this?

Straight away it's like being on board ship,

you've got all this old wood

and there's a real whiff of the sea about it and the old pictures.

What do you think, Rubes. Eh?

RUBES BARKS

I'm doing this inside but I can't...

Eh, look where we are.

'The place is basic, but a few home comforts will go a long way.'

There you go, Rubes.

Is that all right for you? Anything else we can get you?

I think the great thing about this place

is when you step outside, what you're looking at.

There's the village of Roundstone.

I think it's really evocative, looking over a stretch of water

towards a village, and to see the lights twinkling

in the evening of this vibrant, little fishing community.

The village of Roundstone dates back nearly 200 years,

but there have been people living on this coast for thousands of years.

The word Connemara translates as "community of the sea",

so as a marine biologist, I feel like I've found my spiritual home.

My first task, after settling in, is to stake out my patch

and that means a quick hike to the top of Errisbeg,

a lone hill in a flat patchwork of bog and sea.

Behind me is a wilderness, Connemara is a world famous wilderness.

But, for me, the real wilderness is out there.

That's the Atlantic, that's one of the great oceans of the world

and that's my beat, that's where the giants are,

and that's why I'm desperate to get out there and get on with the job.

Later in the summer I can expect to see sharks,

basking sharks that migrate through these waters

scooping up cavernous mouthfuls of plankton,

and blue sharks that travel as many as 3,000 miles to feed here.

I'll be working on projects to tag them and to track their movements.

But first there are the cetaceans,

the marine mammals that include whales and dolphins.

Ever since I was a little kid, I've dreamed of studying a population of dolphins and of whales

and of giant animals off the coast of a beautiful little fishing port

in a wild region, and here I am, Connemara.

And the great thing is, no-one has ever studied this coastline in any detail.

Everything I do will add new data from this area.

But before I do anything else, I need to check in at the office.

The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group is based a few hours south of me,

in the town of Kilrush.

I've come down just to, to get a kind of briefing about what work I can realistically do

and that's the key I think. I don't want to play at it,

I actually do want to do something that will help

research into the dolphins and whales on the west coast of Ireland.

There it is. Behave yourself, pal.

Come on then, big fella.

Right, be nice, Rubes, you're essentially meeting my boss,

Come on, Rubes, you've got to make a good impression.

'My new boss is Dr Simon Berrow, co-ordinator of the IWDG.

'This is pretty intimidating. Simon's an expert on whales and dolphins,

'while I know about as much as Reuben does.

-'Maybe that's why Simon makes a beeline for him.'

-Star of the show!

That's an increasingly common conversation, that is.

Nice to see you, Simon, how are you?

I should point out to you very hastily, Simon, that although my background is marine biology,

I am by no stretch of the imagination a cetacean expert,

so this is really stage one for me of trying to learn.

'This is just the excuse Simon needs to start my cetacean education.'

I take this round schools and I put kids' heads...

I say, "Put your head inside the mouth of a killer whale."

They go, "You'll drop it on my head." "I won't," and then I do!

Here's something that a friend presented to me in his wife's pasta jar,

turn it, twist it round a bit more.

No, it's an eyeball!

-It's the eyeball of a fin whale, you know.

-Good grief!

This is a bottlenose dolphin's skull but when you take these round to kids,

kids think it's a crocodile or a dinosaur. We're talking whales and dolphins here.

I mean, I take this around the schools and I say, "What's this?"

They go, "Oh, it's a dinosaur."

And you say, "You would have seen one on the way to school, it's a cow."

And the idea of being a marine mammal and a terrestrial mammal and how the marine mammals

adapted with the nostrils moving on top of the head.

In all, more than 20 species of whale and dolphin can be found in Irish waters.

But little is known about the populations off my coastline.

In Connemara, you're going to have a lot of strandings

and you'll find rotten corpses lying on an island,

thinking what in the name of God is that?

With a bit of training, you'll be able to identify those with total reliability.

And you collate a database of the species that are stranded?

Yeah, Connemara's always been a struggle

and there must be a lot more things happening, more strandings

and we don't really hear about it so your presence up there will act as a focus

and will push the thing on a bit more.

Brilliant, that's the idea, to be your man in Connemara.

Any information I can collect in Connemara will be new.

Simon's whale and dolphin research covers the whole of Ireland, North and South,

but this is an area where little research has been done.

His main focus is right on his doorstep.

The Shannon Estuary is home to the only resident pod of bottlenose dolphins in the whole of Ireland.

A very incongruous environment for dolphins to be in, if you think about it.

The Shannon Estuary is quite industrialised, as you can see,

and if you were in that water you wouldn't be able to see your hand in front of your face.

That's one of the reasons the dolphins love it here!

There's all sorts of nutrients, it's an estuary, full of life.

Limited visibility doesn't bother a dolphin,

they've got their extraordinary echo location.

They've got a set of tools that makes them the dominant predator in this environment.

Simon's been intensively studying this pod of dolphins out here for many years

and I've got the great opportunity of gathering all that knowledge off him,

and hopefully applying that knowledge to any dolphins I find off Connemara.

As well as monitoring the 20,000 visitors each year

to make sure they don't overly disturb the dolphins,

he's building up information about the population,

using all the science at his disposal.

The acoustic listening devices he and his colleague, Joanne O'Brien, are deploying

record the presence of nearby animals and I'll be using the same kit for my research in Connemara.

All right, Simon.

You can see Simon and Joanne are really taking their time in getting this right.

That's about 12,000 euros' worth of kit they're putting over the side there.

You all right? One, two, three! Oh, that'll do.

'The information is recorded on tiny memory cards,

'the rest of the pod is filled with the batteries that keep it powered for months at a time.'

I'm keenly aware that I'm going to be doing it soon in Connemara with their gear,

and it'd be a disaster if they got lost.

And it would be absolutely invaluable to them

if they stay where they are and they gather the data.

Simon's research in the Shannon goes back 18 years,

but there's evidence that the resident pod has been here for centuries.

Ancient texts refer to an animal called the Cathach or "Shannon monster".

They talk about seeing these fins cutting through the water.

They talk about seeing them blow, the fire from the belly of the monster.

-Sounds like bottlenose dolphins.

-Sounds very much like dolphins.

This myth goes back to St Senan from the sixth century. We could argue, with no evidence whatsoever,

that dolphins have been here possibly thousands of years.

Sadly, no such records exist for Connemara,

but Simon has thrown down the gauntlet, starting research from scratch

and his priority is photo ID, taking pictures of the tell-tale marks

and scratches that clearly identify each dolphin.

You know, it's such a powerful tool.

It's great fun as well, it's like hunting actually.

But for bottlenose dolphins, so many of them carry unique markings,

probably because they're bashing off each other.

Roundstone, Connemara, the second best place for bottlenose dolphins,

-after the Shannon, in Ireland.

-Right.

It's a species you will encounter a lot, it's a species that we'd like a lot of work done on.

The drive home is ample time to reflect.

As well as photo ID-ing the local dolphin population,

I'm also hoping to tag basking sharks as part of a national survey,

and to help out with strandings.

The coastline I'll be working is a notorious patchwork of reefs and rocky inlets,

and I'm worried if I'm left to my own devices I'll wreck the rib.

So for my first trip out, I'm putting myself in the hands of THE local expert.

Nice to meet you.

Everyone I've spoken to locally said there's one man you need

to take out and show you the ropes.

He wasn't available so we had to go out with Martin here!

'The man taking it all in good humour is Martin O'Malley.'

That particular rock from there to Inishlacken,

there's a line of reefs that run about to where the boat is there.

'His proud boast is that he shares his surname with Grace O'Malley,

'a notorious pirate queen of the 16th century,

'whose ruined castle still surveys the bay.'

She held sway over these waters where Martin now works as a fisherman,

coastguard and powerboat instructor.

-So we're heading to Slyne?

-Slyne Head.

-Slyne Head.

-Yeah.

-Right.

I've seen it on the chart,

obviously it sort of juts out very spectacularly.

That's right. As you can see, it's dotted with reefs...

-Yeah.

-..between here and Slyne Head.

-So we'll go towards Slyne Head inside the islands.

-Fantastic.

This is the point where my healthy sense of self-preservation

insists that I hand over the wheel to Martin.

If I was doing this I'd be doing about the same speed as a punt,

be going very slowly indeed.

Really dangerous area this.

It's full of these little hazards popping up everywhere, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

My emotions are a little difficult to put into words at the moment.

I've got a vice-like grip on the handle here.

Martin does have this exhilarating thing of thundering straight at rock walls at enormous speed.

Watch this. Whoo!

HE LAUGHS

Sorry.

Good work.

I was always confident. I was always confident.

I wasn't nervous, even for a second.

-We had a nice pod of orcas here last year.

-Really?

-Yeah, just closer to Slyne Head.

-Yeah.

'In the next bay, the reason for the orcas' interest becomes clear.

'It's packed with some killer whales' favourite foods.'

Look at that. Plenty of grey seals around, plenty of commons.

Good spot for 'em, grand spot for 'em.

But Simon's priority is finding and ID-ing dolphins,

so after a brief look at Slyne Head, the westernmost part of my beat,

it's time for me to take the wheel for the run home.

What about dolphins and things?

There are fairly... I've seen them...

half the times I was out this year, I've seen dolphins.

-Oh, really?

-Yes.

-Oh, that's terrific.

There's usually a pod of about, maybe 14, 16.

That'd be great for me because then you establish a relationship with them,

and you know, you get to know the animals and identify them, photograph and things like that.

Oh, well I can keep a...

I can keep a check as well with some of the local lads and see what...

That'd be great.

There's something in the bay there, I don't know, was it a dolphin?

Wait a second. Maybe I just caught the end of a cormorant diving.

-There we go.

-There we go.

He's right on our stern, just nice.

Oh, there he is, there he is.

They'll get bored of us before we get bored of them, won't they?

-Probably, yeah.

-Yeah, fantastic.

Martin, if I could hand the helm over to you.

If I can get a photograph of each one, I can send it down to Simon

to see if he can match it to records of other dolphins they've got along this coastline.

And then we know specifically which animals we're dealing with.

-OK, there they are.

-I've got 'em, yeah.

I have actually got a shot, good grief!

Oh, with the mountains in the background, how extraordinary, that never happens.

Oh, that's the shot of the day!

You can see, one of them's got some distinct notches in its fin,

and again, that'll be totally unique to that animal.

So I'll send that down to Simon and hopefully he'll be able to get a good idea of this animal,

and whether it's been seen before or whether it's a new record

for this section of coastline.

So, the work begins.

-Right, shall we head on in?

-Yeah.

Photo identification's such an important part of my job in Connemara

that I've decided to drive down to Simon's with the pictures, to see the next step for myself.

But hot on the heels of a dolphin sighting, there's another surprise just outside the village.

There's an otter.

Oh, look at that. Look at that.

There's two otters.

'When I think of all the hours I've spent looking for otters and not finding them,

'this in incredible. Two together, that's a big first for me.'

This is the main salmon river...

..and just as you drive along, it's quite incredible what you see as you glance out the window.

Synchronised swimmers.

Right. Fantastic.

I suspect I'm already late to see Simon but it's so difficult,

you just can't drive past two otters rolling and playing in a beautiful burn.

Very nice, better get a move on.

This is an important meeting for me because I need Simon to know that I'm going to do a proper job.

This is my first stab at finding out if the photos I've taken are right,

the information I've gathered is right

and whether he's got records of these animals that I saw the other day.

That's a really nice image.

Yeah, there's a couple of really clear shots.

There's an individual, there we are...

You can see it's very distinctive.

Yeah.

Simon, as you can see, he's wounded at the moment.

He's a winged warrior.

You can still work the mouse, that's the key, the mouse fingers.

He fell off his bike trying to ride over a can in the road.

-I was pushed.

-Yeah, which is a really uncool injury.

What Simon and his colleague, Joanne O'Brien, are looking for

are tell-tale scratches that can differentiate one dolphin from another.

If you see one, straight away you're like, "I know that one."

There's certain ones that stand out and the minute you see it you go, "That's familiar."

-Sometimes you'll know the place, but not always.

-Yeah, yeah, of course.

Yeah, so this is the one with tooth rakes, scratched teeth marks.

-They're tooth rakes, see the parallel lines?

-Yeah.

The gaps between the scratches might be by playing, being aggressive,

and it could be because adults will compete with each other to get access to the females.

-Jeez, I think we might have it.

-Wow!

There's a nick at the top and there's two...

I suppose it's an easy trap to fall into, isn't it, but it does look very...

-Very like it, yeah.

-I can't believe how quick you found that, Joanne.

You must have hundreds of records.

We have them laid out so we know that if there's four or more

nicks on this then we go to the folder and look under...

Zoom into that one there, it's better along the trailing edge.

OK, so if you look at that one there now.

You've got your nick up here and you've got your nick there.

And on this one you can see a slight kink in there as well,

and maybe that's that.

But this is very prominent there, look,

and you can see that the bottom nick is the same shape.

So if you go on the website here,

you can see, this is what we call Bottlenose Dolphin Island 35.

So you click on that and it drags out

-the sighting record from the database, OK?

-Fantastic.

So you can see this was taken Donegal Bay on 8th August in a group of 40.

So that was what, August 2008,

so we're nearly just short of two years later.

Roundstone to Donegal Bay, it's probably a few hundred kilometres.

So any records I'm providing are potentially quite significant for you.

-Yeah, and if it's not there, it'll be added to the database, increasing it.

-For sure.

It has big implications. All European states

are supposed to designate sites for the protection of bottlenose dolphins,

and the Shannon is the only one in Ireland.

We've been arguing that there should be more.

As I said, when we started, we don't get many records from Connemara.

It's another piece of the jigsaw, it's a good piece of the jigsaw

and I've no doubt that you'll get more and more. So it is significant.

Maybe you just got lucky, Monty.

-Yeah!

-First trip out and you nail a couple of good images.

-You make your luck!

-You've set a very high standard for yourself.

Oh, God!

That was tremendous. It's very difficult to walk away

from any conversation with Simon without feeling massively enthused

and committed to the work you're doing.

But it's so nice to know that the photographs I'm taking

are adding to a meaningful database,

and there is a genuine need to get the information from Connemara.

The stuff swimming around off the coast there,

when I speak to the locals... huge animals.

The giants of the sea come to visit Connemara.

And it's great to see them, but it's even better

to contribute to their conservation by providing data.

So I'll get out there and photograph everything that moves, basically!

The trip has certainly given me the boost I needed.

There's so much to do logging wildlife sightings on a coastline

that's been ignored for so long.

But every time I return to Inishnee, it's like crossing a moat

and shutting myself away in my own sleepy little fortress,

complete with all its eccentricities.

-Oh!

-HE LAUGHS

That presumably stops the cow sinking.

It's a cow flotation device.

Why...why would you do that? That's quite... There we go.

This is a very, very seductive, soporific place.

And chatting to some of the locals here,

they say that for the first few days anyone comes here,

it's almost like they're drugged.

The quality of the air and the whisper of the waves and the wind,

and you just feel like you want to sleep and kick back and relax.

It's so important that I remember that I'm here to do a job.

But, you know, I have to say in the office, the wallpaper ain't too bad.

There we are. Beautiful.

I've been lucky so far, but today's a wake-up call

that not every day is going to be bathed in sunshine.

And not every day is going to bring me inspirational encounters with wildlife.

There are darker sides to the job too.

Just had a call about a dolphin carcass in Clifden.

And Clifden is the capital of Connemara,

and by all accounts it's a really beautiful place.

And I say by all accounts, cos I've never been there before.

One of the things you notice in Ireland is the multi-coloured shop fronts.

It's almost like everyone's got together and said,

"Right, what's a really kaleidoscopic series of colours we can pick for our high street?"

And I think it's lovely.

This is the rather beautifully named Sky Road.

And...for a very simple reason, you get an amazing view,

big skies, cliffs, panoramas,

and of course the Atlantic.

Strandings will form an important part of my work here.

The carcass of a whale or dolphin gives valuable insight into its diet

and into the toxins it might be absorbing from the water around it.

'The key is getting to them before they decompose

'or get washed back into the sea.'

Very frequently these carcasses will just be lifted off by a tide and float away.

But you just never know.

I can't smell anything, but that's where Rubes comes into his own.

Come on, Rubes, come on! Find me a dolphin.

This is about as high as the tide gets,

so it's about the optimum bad time to look for this animal.

But we'll walk the whole beach, you never know.

Ireland sees about 150 strandings a year.

Around 20 of those are live strandings,

where the animal can be manoeuvred back into the water.

I'll be on standby to help with a live stranding anywhere in Ireland,

but I can also expect several dead animals on my patch during the summer.

Getting samples means reaching the site

before the carcass is washed back out to sea.

Right, there's no sign of a large odorous mammal,

except for that one, but it's never wasted

when you come to the seashore because of the stuff you find.

The soil's not very good for growing stuff in Connemara,

in a lot of Connemara.

So what local people do is they get fish boxes

and they fill them with soil, and then grow things in soil.

So I'm going to take this fish box and give it a go.

Come on, Rubes!

The sea on my doorstep is packed with food

and now it's provided me with a means of growing veg as well.

I feel quite inspired.

I want to become as self-sufficient as I can while I'm living here.

Right, my renowned green fingers.

A round cabbage. French dwarf beans, sounds too complicated.

Uh... Rhubarb.

Come August, I'll be eating cabbage, spuds

and rhubarb in some bizarre combination.

Could grow herbs.

This is the fish box I picked up from the beach the other day.

It's come from Holland.

'Now it's part of my plan to grow as much of my own veg as possible.'

Rubes considers himself something of an authority on digging holes,

so I'm always very closely supervised.

Right, I'm going to plant potatoes in this one.

These little sort of shoots that come up

used to freak me out when I was a kid,

and my sister used to chase me with potatoes that had sprouted.

Which, I suppose is, in retrospect, quite weird.

Come on, little fella, come on.

There we are. Finally in my Dutch fish box,

I'm going to have a herb garden.

The whole idea of that is fish will feature very strongly in my summer

and it'd be lovely to have my own herbs to flavour them myself.

'Herbs for my fresh fish, spuds, cabbage

'and salad leaves on the side, and rhubarb for pudding.

'I'll live like a king.' And there we are, a perfect suntrap here.

The sun arcs across like that.

Hey, shadow animals.

Rabbit, stag.

Hedgehog rolled up.

-Dog.

-RUBES BARKS

Easy! You see? It's just... I'll show you how to do it some day.

There we go, job done. Good luck, chaps, you're on your own.

Rubes goes insane the moment he gets a whiff of ozone.

Temporarily loses his mind.

I think it's cos he's grown up on beaches, you know,

he knows they're fun.

Don't worry, Rubes, we're going out in a moment, I promise.

Having the sea on our doorstep is a huge plus for Rubes.

And for me, it means access to a massive seafood larder.

I love shellfish, and I've heard about an event

that sounds just too good to miss.

I'm heading off to a mussel festival,

as in the small shellfish as opposed to a large group of men in thongs.

I'm really keen to become part of the Connemara community.

And this is just the event I wanted for my debut.

Heaven help us.

As part of the mussel festival, they have a cookery competition

and I've entered.

The festival's being held in the village of Tullycross.

It feels like half of Connemara's turned out

in celebration of the thriving local mussel industry.

I was in Canada.

They're a great little food. They come in their own little package.

Well, I'm cooking in a minute in the...

Are you cooking in a minute?

I am, which is potentially humiliating on a massive scale.

'It's amazing how fast you make new friends in Ireland.

'As Warren, the chef, shows me how the professionals cook mussels.

'I discover that Mairin ui Chomain is one of Ireland's top cookery writers.'

So are you here to do a demo are you...

I'm here to do the judging.

-So you'll be judging me.

-I will.

-Right.

-That's very hard now.

-Getting in with the judge before the event.

-That's not fair.

I'm under pressure now.

Now I know you're this amazing food writer and all that, I'm going to go to pieces.

'To be honest I was probably going to pieces anyhow

'but armed with my new excuse and inspired by the pros

'I'm ready to take on the best amateur mussel chefs in Connemara.'

Cider vinegar, cider, cream, it's a nightmare.

It's a genuine nightmare.

'In all there are eight competitors.

'Apart from yours truly and one lone American they're all locals, steeped in the traditions of the sea

'and I'm pretty sure they're all better mussel cooks than I am.'

Mussels a la cider, Willy Nelson.

I'm cooking against Willy Nelson.

The last year I was wearing this they gave me 18-year-old whisky.

-Right.

-I just dunked it into the pot of mussels and they haven't spoken to me for a year.

No, I'm not surprised.

-This is a recipe you've come up with yourself?

-Yes.

-A little bit of trial and error?

I didn't practise it. I've made so many mistakes that this is going to be the final one.

The first contestant is Davina Errol.

'I need the crowd on my side.

'But I'm not making a great start.'

-We have Monty Hall, here you go Monty.

-Thank you very much.

-Monty, if you didn't guess it, Monty is representing England.

-Oh.

-And, the Outer Hebrides.

-Hooray!

Good luck, Monty.

This is, I think, what's defined in the business as a tough gig.

-Go back to the Outer Hebrides.

-Oh, Marion you don't mean that.

-I do.

Yes, you do don't you.

The front row, it is terrifying!

And as the lone Englishman in the competition,

I imagine the crowd are going to be very kind to me, I think.

As long they, they don't start throwing stuff. That's the key.

Finely chop an onion.

And here we have Monty in the far corner. Oh, yes, he's cooking away, cooking away.

I am, yeah, I feel quietly confident.

Ah, let me see this is onions, bit of garlic, bit of butter and then a bit of cider later on.

-Somebody recognised your wife.

-Yes, Rubes, hello Rubes.

Come on Marian, come on!

We're good, we're good, I've nearly finished.

Five, four, three, two, one!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

There we are. There we are.

Can I say how beautiful and glamorous you look, Mairin. Just before I give you this.

Enjoy it.

-Super. Very tasty the sauce is lovely.

-Very nice.

OK, it's all winding up now,

we got the judges' results in a moment.

Hopefully the fact I nobbled Mairin before the event will stand me in good stead.

Really great, really, even the banter, I enjoyed the banter.

It's no place for the weak, up there, cooking mussels, believe me.

There's a sort of simmering competitiveness here, you know.

It's like the Oscars. When the other person wins, you've got to look happy for them.

-And give 'em a clap.

-It's massive, like fake smile on my face, but well done now.

But inside you're dying, inside you're dying.

OK, who came first?

-Because, and it's not favouritism.

-OK.

-Hand on my Connemara heart.

-Monty is third.

-Hooray.

Thank you very much.

-In second place, with my hand on my Connemara heart.

-Ken!

You've got to kiss Marian now.

And the winner is?

-And the winner is Davina.

-Hooray.

Well done.

Monty, I'm sorry, lovey, but my daughter won.

I was honoured to cook next to her.

A popular result.

Got a third, what was all that about?

Always have a little chat with the judge beforehand,

buy 'em a drink, that's the way to get third.

The greatest moment of my life, you know, coming third.

-All right, Mairin.

-I'm delighted, you made my life happier.

-Bye, cameraman, I love you, too, bye.

-Bye, Mairin.

-See you later, Mairin.

See you in London or in wherever.

The mussels thrive in the nutrient-rich round waters here

but also bring in the large marine animals I'm here to study.

So it's time to go for a dive, to find out what else is lurking in the depths.

I'm just pulling away from the local dive centre and they've invited me along today to do one of their dives

and I've heard great things about this dive.

It'll mean coming face-to-face with conger eels,

animals that have a fearsome, but I believe undeserved reputation amongst divers and fishermen.

If you could imagine doing this on dry land,

imagine four, five, six anacondas coming out and wrapping themselves around you.

So it should be a very exciting dive.

I've heard this dive described as the best dive in Europe.

So hopes are high, I must say.

A beautiful setting to encounter a leviathan.

Look at this, big hills capped by thunder clouds, storm clouds

and we're off to lower ourselves in, crouch at the mouth of a cave

and wait for these great slate grey monsters to come out.

I mean, come on.

'In real life Francis Stockwell is a school caretaker.'

So the dive site itself, you're gonna be concentrating your dive along this edge of the island.

'But he's been diving on this site since the congers were first discovered in 1994

'and now acts as an unofficial guide.'

So they'll come out and just have a little nose around.

A good nose around, yeah. A very good nose around.

You're looking at one of the top predators on any rocky reef in Europe, the conger eel,

and they rely on this amazing sense of smell,

so the moment I open this down there, it's like a dinner gong

and they'll hear the dinner gong and hopefully come rushing.

Gloves today. Don't normally wear gloves.

Being a top predator, the conger has razor sharp teeth and a vice-like bite.

They struggle like mad on the end of a fishing line

and have got something of a reputation amongst divers.

But I suspect that, like any wild animal, they'll only attack if they feel threatened

and I'm sure they won't see me as a threat.

These congers are clearly used to people feeding them,

but they wouldn't be here if the waters weren't extraordinarily rich in the first place.

It's no wonder dolphins are a common sight round here.

That is one of the best dives I think I've ever done. Just superb.

When you're nose-to-nose with a big old conger, it's really special.

-They're incredibly gentle, aren't they?

-They are very gentle.

-Really gentle. They're, you know, just after the fish.

-Yeah, yeah.

-They're like a big puppy.

-Yeah.

-Lovely brown eyes looking at you.

Francis, thank you so much just fantastic, really, really good.

Back in Roundstone my aim is to spend as much time as possible on the water.

It may sound blindingly obvious but I won't see the dolphins again

unless I'm out there looking for them.

It's keeping your eyes peeled, putting the hours in, criss-crossing along the coast,

but most of all it's luck.

I'm in the same area where Martin and I spotted that pair a few days ago.

If I can get repeated sightings I'll be able to establish

whether these are year-round residents or just passers by.

But no sightings today. Off for a cup of tea now.

My mouth isn't working any more, I'm that cold.

Maybe they've just moved on. There we go, there we go.

My job here is very reactive in that incidents are gonna happen up and down the coast

and I'm just gonna have to jump in the wagon and go

and I got a call from Simon quite late last night saying that a minke whale has washed up.

Now it's dead, unfortunately, but every time that happens you need to figure out how the animal died,

try and piece together, it's quite a forensic exercise.

Simon's gonna do an autopsy on the minke whale and I'm gonna help out.

Also this'll be a great opportunity for me

to figure out how to do these things should a whale or a dolphin wash up on my patch.

My first of call is the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology.

Simon has asked me to pick up Connor Ryan, a PhD student

who can't wait to get his hands on this rare research opportunity.

-Hello, Connor, how are you?

-How are you?

-I'm very well. Do you do many of these?

Connor's fascination started when he was 15

and he spent the summer holidays watching a pod of killer whales

that turned up near his hometown of Cork.

What I'm interested in is the genetics and what they're eating.

Hopefully the stomach contents will still be fresh.

The stranded whale is washed up at Doolin,

on the south side of Galway Bay.

-Did you say it was originally it was about 150...

-Yeah, 150 yards just over this way.

A little bit of climbing involved.

Not for the first time, it looks like I've arrived at the stranding too late.

I imagine the tide would have come in, just lifted it.

-And probably carried...

-There's definite interest, isn't there?

Yeah, there's people over there.

'And sure enough, a little further round the headland we find first Simon...'

Did you find it?

'..then the whale which has been washed back ashore.'

-There she is.

-Wow, that is a young animal, isn't it?

-It is, yeah.

Yeah, right. The pressure is on.

This whale is a treasure trove, packed with information,

but with the tide rising it needs to be unlocked before the sea takes it away again.

The exciting thing about this one is it's fresh.

It was caught in a lobster line around a lobster pot.

It's tragic to see it like this

and a stark reminder that whales and dolphins are mammals, like you and me,

so if they get entangled and trapped underwater, like us, they drown for lack of air.

Connor is taking DNA samples for his own research project,

but this is also a rare chance for him and Simon to examine the diet of a juvenile whale.

As soon as they close their mouths the fish are trapped here - on this side.

The water falls out here and that's why they're all so packed in tight together.

It forms a good seal when they close,

when they shut their mouth,

that holds the fish behind but water spills out the other side.

This is the tongue. Whale tongues are amazing things.

When they close their mouth they push the water out with the tongue.

The tongue is very squishy - squishes the water out through the baleen.

Just there, one interesting point is that, we know that this animal was weaned off its mother because

if it was still dependent on its mother and still feeding,

it would have large finger-like projections at the tongue,

where it would hold onto the mother's teat when they sucked.

-OK.

-Good stuff, right.

-Well, let the show begin.

So you can make the first incision.

That's probably quite blunt that knife.

-D'you want to put this...

-Is everyone standing back for a reason? Ha!

-There we are, yeah.

-Yeah, feel the pressure now?

-You don't want to burst the intestines cos it gets very messy then.

-Yep.

-Very fresh, it's still red meat.

-Isn't it, yeah.

GAS EXPLODES

-Oh!

-Sorry, James!

Thanks, good shot.

-Did it get you?

-That was... It was OK, all, it was all gas

and no, no itty bits. HE LAUGHS

That is bad.

I think there's a lesson, don't stand in front of a whale when you're about to cut it open.

-That is bad.

-That wasn't too bad now. Oh, that was good by dead whale standards.

-That's taken the pressure off, well done.

-Never seen you move so fast in my life, that was...

-Right!

-Keep going, yeah, keep going a bit further.

-Keep going.

-OK, the smell is really fetid.

So that was its intestines that, that went off then.

It's like a real sort of, a mortar blast of stench from its innards.

Not that pleasant, I must say, hoo!

'But we have to press on.'

So you see it does peel off very easily.

'Our outdoor laboratory is under siege.

'The rising tide is creeping ever closer and working our way in

'to find the contents of the whale's stomach is painstakingly difficult.'

You've got to move everything to get to the stomach,

cos the stomach holds the answers.

The stomach will have whatever this animal has been eating.

OK, where is its stomach?

There's the heart.

So the stomach must be...

I hope it's not in that mush there.

'The search is fascinating but it goes way beyond anything I'd do,

'if I found a stranded whale on my patch.'

The requirement for the Whale and Dolphin Group is species,

gender and length and then to take a skin sample.

That's sent off to the Natural History Museum to store for genetics,

so we wouldn't normally expect you to be opening them up but diet is

-a fundamental thing and for you, it's fascinating...

-Absolutely.

-..To see what's inside.

'After three hours of stench and back-breaking work,

'Simon and Connor find the elusive stomach but the results are not what they were expecting.'

Sadly there isn't anything in the stomach which is

a disappointment, but Simon thinks the animal vomited when it was,

when it was drowning and expelled whatever was in there

out into the open sea,

so it's a pity, but, again, a huge mine of information here.

'I've learned loads about whale anatomy and seen at firsthand how

'that massive tongue drives that extraordinary baleen feeding mechanism.

'Connor's taking home ongoing research as well.'

The idea with stable isotope analysis is you are what you eat.

So, the proteins in the baleen will reflect the proteins of the fish they were eating,

so the baleen's fantastic, maybe that's two years old,

I can sample the length of it and see if their diet fluctuated over time.

Right. Well, it's been a truly unique experience.

-Another badge of honour.

-Another badge, and I'm a bit closer to being a proper whale...

It's been a wonderful afternoon for me with Connor and Simon, I've learned so much.

There's been one overriding thought as I cut up the whale,

and that's how beautiful it is.

It's such an exquisite design. You see the pleats in the throat

and the colouration and the rainbow colours on the tongue.

It really is so beautiful, and that's a dead whale, slightly decomposed.

Just imagine it out in the open ocean, you know,

what a sight it must be.

And you, you realise when you look at the baleen

and you look at that massive tongue that as the animal feeds, taking in

swimming pool-sized lumps of the ocean and then pushing them out

through the baleen, you realise what an efficient feeding method it is

and why it's created the largest animals that have ever lived on planet Earth.

Alongside my whale and dolphin research I'm keen to offer

my services as a diver and I found just the place for my first job.

Ever since the mussel festival,

where I came third, incidentally, in the mussel cooking competition,

I've been quite intrigued every time I've driven past Killary Fjord here to see the mussel farms.

So I've got in touch with Marty Knee, who runs this farm.

I'll go and dive with him, just help him out and do a couple of jobs.

Marty started farming mussels here in 2001.

He now exports all over Europe but he supplies the local market, too.

It was his produce I was cooking at the mussel festival.

I haven't seen you since the mussel festival.

No. No, my moment of triumph!

-OK?

-OK, Marty.

-Ready for action?

I am ready for action. 'Marty's out here in all weathers,

'hauling up ropes of mussels that have taken 18 months to mature.

'But, ever the marine biologist, I'm more interested in the things that grow alongside them.'

Amazing, the encrusted life on these ropes.

You've got sea squirts, anemones,

all the mussels, the barnacles.

That's very, very hard.

The shoulders, the forearms, whoo.

Each one of these ropes is about 65 kilograms.

It's the equivalent of a small man hanging on these lines,

and Marty, for ten hours a day, has to grab the end of the line,

drag it over to here and then up and then shred it.

Line after line, hour after hour after hour.

If I did this for ten hours,

I-I'd be in hospital.

But I think this form of farming's wonderful

because surely you're providing settlement areas for lots of larval marine life

who are making the most of an entirely natural process

and it seems very sustainable.

So, yeah... It's not sustainable for me, I hasten to add,

I'd last about a day.

It's an extraordinary little animal, this.

One of the predators of the mussel is the dog whelk

and when it moves into a colony of mussels it tries to drill a hole

and basically eat the mussel through the shell.

The mussel will throw out these byssal threads and try and pin it down.

So if you look at a colony of mussels,

which you find on any rocky shore pretty much around the UK,

you'll see little dog whelks caught like Gulliver, lassoed

and dying basically, because they starve to death cos they can't move.

The other great thing about these guys is they sit still,

in one place and filter water, that's how they get their food.

But that means if there's chemicals in that water they produce enzymes in response to the chemicals.

So if you take one of these and crush and analyse it,

you can see what chemicals are in the water that it's filtering.

Here in Killary Fjord pollution isn't an issue,

so I'm desperate to dive and see how much marine life the waters sustain,

and Marty has a job for me.

I'd like you to check the mooring blocks on the end of the lines,

-if that's OK.

-Yeah, that's fine.

He's about to book a crane to move his mooring blocks

and he needs to know how badly silted up they've become.

What a lovely man, and the great thing is that he's sitting in Killary Fjord now.

A lot of dolphins backwards and forwards in here and when call him about the state of his moorings,

I'll say, tell me any time any dolphins appear and I can get

straight down here and I think it's the way it works, isn't it?

You do a favour for someone and they help you back.

Marty's mussels grow in about 40 feet of water.

The top few feet are thick with plankton blooms that reduce

visibility to almost nil, but below that the water clears

and it's a simple dive to the end of the mooring lines.

'My return to the surface takes me back through that thick layer of plankton.

'It's what basking sharks eat and is a vital part of the food chain.'

'Basking sharks can grow to 30 feet long

'and weigh the same as four African elephants.

'Despite their size they're incredibly difficult to find.

'But if the plankton blooms are here, they won't be far behind.

'I volunteered to tag them as part of Simon's research,

'so once I've put away a well-earned bowl of Killary's finest,

'it's back to Roundstone to be there when they first surface in my bay.'

You always travel more in hope than expectation

when you come out to look for animals like this. There's a lot of ocean,

we are looking for a giant but there's a heck of a lot of sea.

You need the right conditions, lots of plankton, bit of sunlight

and I've just got to come across one in the vicinity of the boat.

The baskers are making me wait.

Maybe it's still too early for them.

But if you're prepared to put in the time on the water, it's almost never wasted.

Hey-hey-hey!

Coming straight for... Whoa!

Loads of dolphins, wooh!

Look at that and there!

Fantastic.

How many we got, one, two...

Impossible to count.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

which is the numbers that the fishermen say they see here,

so this could be, who knows, a resident pod.

These are the dolphins - it's only the third time I've been out and twice I've seen dolphins.

That would be very exciting to know these guys spend a lot of their time

in this stretch of coastline, in this very small area.

These are the dolphins I need to get to know over the next six months

because if we can prove they're here

and not really anywhere else, that they stay in one place,

then it means we've got a good argument for trying to get this area protected,

and also finding all about this population as well, how many animals there are, do they have young.

Way-hey, look at that!

Oh-ho-ho, got him perfectly.

Go on, have a little jump, go on.

Oh, that was a good shot!

He's right in the middle of my lens, jumping out of the water.

Look at that...

Shot of the day.

I took a whole bunch of very bad photographs there

and how much ID value we can get out of them, I'm not too sure.

There were maybe three or four photos we could really clearly see the fin.

And I'll send those off to Simon straight away,

and slowly the record builds over the summer,

and slowly the story will begin to be told about these animals.

Next time, Martin shows me where to drop my creels for some of the best seafood in Europe...

..and the wildlife fights back.

First the orphaned otter that smells dog on my trousers... Oi!

Then trying to photograph an ocean giant.

The sharks arrive in record numbers.

That was moderately close.

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