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Countryfile - Sea Empress
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00:00Now every large vessel that comes in and out of this harbour has to make this turd, taking into careful account the tide, the weather and the manoeuvring characteristics of the vessel. Get it wrong, and the consequences can be devastating.
00:3030 years ago today, one of the UK's worst environmental disasters unfolded.
00:57At the entrance to the port of Milford Haven, a ship called the Sea Empress ran aground and thousands of tonnes of oil spilled into the sea.
01:05And the consequences were devastating, both for the people and the wildlife.
01:1030 years on, has this beautiful corner of Wales fully recovered?
01:17Milford Haven is a port town on Pembrokeshire's beautiful coast.
01:22Its deep natural harbour has made it a magnet for fishing, industry and wildlife.
01:31But in 1996, disaster struck.
01:34This is a very, very big ship. This ship is three football fields. You're talking about three million cars worth of petrol.
01:43It was all hands on deck, as teams came from near and far to help with the clean-up and rescue operation.
01:49All this area you can see here from the harbour to beyond Goska Rock was just black.
01:55And I'm talking sort of that depth of oil.
01:58We've certainly tried to save an awful lot. We washed over 500 birds, but the survival rate with those was very, very poor, very low.
02:08I've been working for about 40 years as a camera operator, and this was the most traumatic story that I've covered.
02:16Milford Haven is one of Wales' busiest ports.
02:33Ships using the port face weather from the Atlantic and narrow, shifting tidal channels.
02:40It's really starting to get choppy now. We can really feel the swell, so you can just imagine how challenging it can be.
02:52The biggest ships, like oil tankers, must be guided in by the port's harbour pilots.
02:59People who know the stretch of water like the back of their hand.
03:03You can just see the size of this tanker. It's colossal.
03:11These waters leave little room for error, and for the past five years, close to 1,000 ships have been guided safely through them by Captain Ewan McNichol.
03:22What made you decide to do this job?
03:25Can I be honest? Yeah.
03:26I just love driving ships. I absolutely love driving ships. It's a cool job.
03:30My career was predominantly mostly on ferries, so there's a lot of ship handling aspect to that.
03:37So the piloting was the natural progression to go down that route.
03:41What's the most challenging part of it?
03:43Driving the ship.
03:45One of the obvious ones is the geography of the area.
03:48It's a naturally formed estuary.
03:51The other one that you can see today is the wind.
03:53Yeah.
03:54South-West UK in these conditions, especially around this time of the year, it can present a challenge.
04:00But Ewan doesn't go it alone.
04:03We have a VTS, Vessel Traffic Services.
04:06They're a bit like air traffic control, and they kind of coordinate all the ship movements.
04:10And we work very closely with the VTS to time those movements, taking into account things like tide, wind, weather.
04:18So it's a very carefully choreographed dance between all of you, actually.
04:22Absolutely. That is a great way to put it, Dashie. It's a choreographed dance, and making sure that all the parts line up.
04:28Today, the mission is to guide a huge 600-foot-long tanker out of port.
04:40To do that, Ewan first needs to get off his pilot boat.
04:45He's about to jump out and climb up that ladder into the tanker to steer it out of the harbour.
04:51The conditions are unforgiving, but Ewan takes the climb in his stride.
05:01Now safely aboard the tanker, he takes the helm, coordinating with the tugs to guide the massive ship through one of the channel's most treacherous stretches.
05:12The turn in the Milford Haven waterway, around the Angle headland to the east, before heading out to sea.
05:19Now every large vessel that comes in and out of this harbour has to make this turn, taking into careful account the tide, the weather, and the manoeuvring characteristic of the vessel.
05:34Get it wrong, and the consequences can be devastating.
05:3830 years ago, a misjudged manoeuvre, here, led to the Sea Empress running aground.
05:49On the night of the 15th of February 1996, BBC camera operator Dave Owen and local photographer Martin Cavaney were among the first to document what was unfolding.
06:05Arriving here as events were still developing, with little sense of the scale of what lay ahead.
06:11So where were you both the night you got the phone call about the Sea Empress?
06:15Well, I was home, and I got a report about a ship aground.
06:18The report I had was it could have been anything from a fishing boat to, well, anything.
06:23Yeah.
06:24No idea about how big an event this was going to be?
06:26No.
06:27No, it was literally, it was a ship on the rocks, go and have a look.
06:30I could see the glow, so I followed the glow, and I parked by a farm gate, and I walked across the ploughed field in a pitch dark, until I got to the edge of the cliff.
06:38And then all of a sudden there was, right below, a giant tanker facing straight onto the cliff.
06:46And this was the first image Martin captured on camera.
06:50A fully laden tanker, the Sea Empress, carrying around 130,000 tonnes of crude oil, stranded on the rocks.
07:00There was a supertanker just lying there like an Indian animal.
07:05It just took a breath away.
07:08Caught by powerful tidal currents and a brief loss of control, the ship had drifted off course and had run aground just after eight in the evening.
07:23As the scale of the disaster began to emerge, Joe Small, from the UK's Marine Pollution Control Unit, arrived to take control.
07:32Well, Joe, in conditions like this, it isn't hard to see how a ship could run aground.
07:37Yeah, you can see that, but we go back 30 years, the night that she ran aground, it wasn't anything like this at all.
07:46No. It was calm.
07:47It became clear that everybody was still on board the vessel, they were all safe, but there was a limited knowledge about the condition.
07:57So we set off and we boarded the vessel just before three in the morning.
08:01The tanker itself, all her lights were on, all her deck lights, everything is illuminated, so you can see a little bit of the sea around you.
08:11You could smell it. There was a lot of oil.
08:13The hull of the sea empress had been torn open on the rocks and oil was pouring into the sea.
08:25So how bad was the damage?
08:27Pretty much most of the right-hand side of the ship, the starboard side, from bow to stern, is completely open.
08:37This is a very, very big ship. This ship is three football fields long. The cargo on board, although it's a crude oil, it was destined to be refined.
08:46You're talking about three million cars worth of petrol. It's a big, big ship.
08:52Out here, winter weather can change in an instant. With a storm building and the ship still stranded, the danger was growing.
09:05The race was on to get the ship off the rocks to limit further oil from spilling into the sea.
09:13The weather conditions deteriorated really badly. Toll wires were breaking.
09:19The small tugs were almost getting trapped underneath. That ran on for nearly a week.
09:30As urgency mounted, camera operators like Martin and David kept their cameras rolling.
09:37The real heroes are the people who were on the tugs because the sea conditions were horrendous.
09:42It was a full gale, right at the entrance of the haven, so it hits the haven head on.
09:47And they were bouncing up and down in horrendous conditions.
09:53Over the six days it took to bring the Sea Empress under control,
09:57around 72,000 tonnes of oil had spilled into the sea,
10:02smothering some of the area's most pristine beaches and leaving wildlife fighting for survival.
10:08The oil slick now stretches some 25 miles and thick oil has been reported washed up on the shore of the island of Skoma.
10:24Martin and Dave weren't just capturing images.
10:27They were revealing the true scale of the disaster and its devastating impact on this treasured stretch of Pembrokeshire coastline.
10:36So this is West Angle Bay, which is opposite where the Sea Empress ran aground.
10:44When we saw the wildlife, when people were pulling out a completely oil-covered bird, it was horrible.
10:51There will be more birds washed up tomorrow, there will be more oil on the beaches too.
11:00It's phenomenal when you look at how filthy the beaches are with sludge and oil.
11:07As a child, I spent hours on West Angle Bay.
11:11My thoughts were, would it ever get back to normal?
11:15You know, it was just...
11:17You just couldn't believe it.
11:28Well, I've been working for about 40 years as a camera operator
11:30and this was the most traumatic story that I've covered.
11:36Just the sheer scale of the devastation and the oil and the smell.
11:41Even after all this time, it sounds like it still stays with you.
11:46It does. Looking at the footage now, it does bring it back.
11:50You know, I've lived in Pembrokeshire all my life and it's a fabulous county.
11:54We've got fabulous scenery, fabulous beaches.
11:56It's a wonderful place to live.
11:58This impacted on that horrendously, you know.
12:01People were quite literally crying.
12:03Yeah.
12:04And thinking it'll never get back to normal.
12:09The oil moved quickly and within just a few days
12:13was spreading along the Pembrokeshire coastline, affecting many of its beautiful beaches.
12:18More than 6,000 seabirds are estimated to have been killed because of the disaster.
12:31But without the help of the community and the efforts of one local lady in particular,
12:36these numbers could have been higher.
12:45I could smell oil as soon as I woke up.
12:48I went downstairs, opened the front door and the smell was almost overpowering.
13:01When my husband David came down, we were discussing what was going on.
13:06And at that point, the postman turned up and he told us that a vessel had gone aground and was losing oil.
13:18The sight was devastating. The sea was just brown. The waves weren't coming in as they usually did.
13:30They were just wallowing. And the smell, the smell was just dreadful.
13:37The day I will never forget.
13:43Maria Evans has been rescuing birds of prey in the area for 34 years.
13:49She was a key figure in the efforts to save birds when disaster struck the coast 30 years ago
13:56and still runs her bird sanctuary today.
13:59Thank you so much for taking the trouble to bring it up to me.
14:02Oh, it's a skota!
14:05Oh, wow! A common skota.
14:07Oh, wow!
14:10This is the closest I've ever been to a common skota like this.
14:15They're very, very beautiful birds.
14:17Normally, I'm watching them way out at sea using my telescope.
14:21They're far out there, miles out.
14:23This is amazing to be able to see one like this.
14:26Just look at that beak.
14:28Do you get these guys in a lot?
14:29Not very often. Only at this time of the year.
14:32Yes.
14:34They're migrating round from the east coast round here.
14:37They come round here in rafts.
14:39Yes.
14:41Not close in. I mean, they hardly ever see a human.
14:43Amazing.
14:45And interestingly, because of the time of year,
14:48these birds were the most implicated in the Sea Empress oil.
14:52Really? Yeah.
14:53Sir, what's your name?
14:54My name's Nick.
14:55Nick, lovely to meet you.
14:56Hi, nice to meet you.
14:57Thank you so much for bringing the bird in.
14:58You're very welcome.
14:59Very welcome.
15:00How did you find the bird?
15:01I found it this morning on the beach in Saundersfoot.
15:02Right.
15:03Walking my two dogs.
15:04Yeah.
15:05And I could see it was obviously injured.
15:06And it actually started limping towards me as if it wanted help.
15:09Yeah.
15:10We picked it up and took it down to the harbour where they managed to find a box.
15:13And we called Maria and she said to bring it up to the sanctuary.
15:17Maria regularly gets calls about injured birds, particularly in winter,
15:22when the weather means that the birds are getting blown around and buffeted into things.
15:28After giving this one some quiet time to rest, she can now try and figure out what might be wrong.
15:35It's quite thin. I can feel its keel bone.
15:38Right. Which is the breast bone that goes down the middle. Okay.
15:41There is the keel bone.
15:43Yes. Oh wow, it is emaciated. I can see that.
15:46Wouldn't you say?
15:47You'd expect to see a bit more pectoral muscles?
15:49Not necessarily at this time of the year with the weather conditions we've had
15:53because they'll shiver off ounces overnight in the cold and the wet and the wind.
16:00The other thing is because the seas are boiling, as in, you know, surf running,
16:06they're not able to get at their food.
16:09Right.
16:10What are you feeling for there? I can see you're going through its wings.
16:15I'm trying to feel if there are any fractures.
16:18Okay.
16:19At the moment I can't feel anything.
16:21Are the signs looking that it's going to make a full recovery, do you think?
16:25Hopefully. Hopefully.
16:27Okay. I can never make promises.
16:29Yeah.
16:30It's estimated around 4,500 common scoters died as a result of the 1996 oil disaster.
16:38What was it like seeing these birds covered in oil?
16:43Very distressing.
16:44Okay.
16:45I was asked by the RSPCA to go and see basically what was happening down there.
16:52And if you've seen the bay, it's quite a small bay.
16:57There was about a 10-metre band of oil from side to side, all the way across.
17:02Completely?
17:03Completely.
17:04I realised I was better used at the oil bird centre because, you know, there was nothing much I could do there.
17:13Yeah.
17:14Did you have any hope at all?
17:16Do you know, I don't think we ever thought about hope.
17:20Really?
17:21I really don't think...
17:24You just didn't think. You just got on with it.
17:27Right.
17:28You were on autopilot just trying to help as many birds as possible.
17:31Oil burns the inside of their mouth and their throat and right down into their stomach and is burning them the whole time.
17:44And is this because they've just simply ingested it or they're just trying to breathe being on the water?
17:49They have ingested it and because they're trying to breathe, yeah.
17:53And I presume they're trying to get it off their feathers and their preen in which they use their beak for it.
17:58Yep.
17:59And at the same time they're ingesting the soil?
18:01Yep.
18:02Oh.
18:03Do you think you saved many birds during the Sea Empress?
18:07We certainly tried to save an awful lot. We washed over 500 birds.
18:12Okay.
18:13But the RSPCA had some of the birds that they'd washed ringed and the survival rate with those was very, very poor, very low.
18:23Yeah.
18:24I mean, I didn't think about it at the time.
18:26No.
18:27But in retrospect, I would never ever get involved.
18:30I think the best thing that the birds, for the birds, would have been euthanasia.
18:35Really?
18:36Mm.
18:37Mm.
18:38Now, 30 years on, can you see the beauty? Can you see the positivity again?
18:48Or is that memory of seeing the beach covered in oil still a scar for you?
18:54It is a little bit of a scar and, yes, I am delighted that I was wrong in that the coastline has recovered remarkably quickly.
19:09Good luck, buddy. You are beautiful. I hope you make a full recovery and come back and see me in the west coast of Scotland.
19:19You are gorgeous.
19:21The Sea Empress disaster was a turning point in Maria's life, convincing her that all types of birds needed her help.
19:29And today, there's currently more than 80 birds in Maria's care, including one very special resident she's keen for me to meet.
19:38I can see we've got a young buzzard.
19:41Yes.
19:42He's beautiful.
19:43Isn't he?
19:44What's his story?
19:45When he first came in, very wet, very, very hungry.
19:49OK.
19:50Absolutely sodden.
19:51I did actually put him in one of the intensive care cages and put the heat lamp on.
19:57Yes.
19:58Because he was just so, so poor.
20:00And I presume if they're that well emaciated and cold, they can't produce their own body heat.
20:05So hence why you have to give them the lamp to just give them a boost.
20:08And came back a miracle, just back from the dead virtually.
20:12And is he likely to be released pretty soon?
20:15Yes.
20:16He is?
20:17Yes.
20:18Before he's released, the next step is to move him into a larger enclosure.
20:23And Maria has asked me to help.
20:26This, this is going to be amazing.
20:27I'm looking forward to this.
20:30Right, are you ready?
20:31Hello.
20:32My name's Hamza.
20:34Lovely to meet you.
20:35Do you want to come to this corner?
20:37Where are you?
20:38Yes.
20:39Oh, he's giving me the run around.
20:40OK.
20:41So you can see this is, this is them protecting themselves.
20:45And this is him talenting me.
20:47There we go.
20:48Come on.
20:49There we go.
20:50Perfect.
20:51That's what I wanted him.
20:52Hello.
20:53Look at this beautiful bird.
20:56These birds in the 60s were not common.
20:59People used to have to go out their way to find these birds.
21:03And luckily, through human intervention and habitat restoration, these guys have made a really good comeback.
21:10Right, come on.
21:11I'll send you to a new home.
21:14The larger enclosure will allow him to exercise his muscles a bit more before he's released.
21:22There we go.
21:23Aha!
21:24How long do you think he's going to be in here before he's back out into the world?
21:29It all depends on the weather.
21:30If the weather bucks up and there's a good long term forecast next week, he could go.
21:36Yeah.
21:38You work so hard.
21:39Do you ever get the chance to leave here?
21:43No, I don't.
21:44But then I don't want to.
21:46Okay.
21:47I don't want to be anywhere else but here.
21:49Three days in 35 years I've been away from here.
21:52That's it.
21:53In 35 years you've only been away for three days.
21:57Why did you leave?
21:59The first one was to go and pick up an RSPCA award in London.
22:05Nice.
22:07The second one was I went to Buckingham Palace to pick up an MBE.
22:12Now we're talking.
22:14Seeing what you do here, the amount of dedication and time and effort that you put into these incredible animals.
22:21If I had a medal right now, I'll be putting it over your head, shaking your hand.
22:25Thank you for everything that you do.
22:27I really appreciate it.
22:28I've enjoyed my day.
22:29It's my pleasure entirely.
22:30No, honestly.
22:31The pleasure is all mine.
22:32I've enjoyed my day today.
22:33Thank you so much.
22:34What I do.
22:35It's what I do.
22:44Look at it.
22:46This landscape is beautiful.
22:49It nurtures, it protects and it feeds the wildlife that's around here.
22:53So I can't imagine what it would have been like on that day when the disaster hit.
22:58There's just people mopping up what looks like mud, but you know it's not mud.
23:13It's crude oil that's spilled all over the place.
23:15I've never seen anything like this and I hope that I don't see anything like this ever again.
23:24What happened on that day was an absolute disaster.
23:28I feel sorry for the humans, but more importantly I feel sorry for the wildlife.
23:34This is a red-throated diver, which is a bird that I get to see on a regular basis.
23:40They're beautiful, they're elegant, they're pristine, they're streamlined.
23:44Here I am struggling to figure out what species it is because it's covered in so much oil.
23:51I could only tell by the shape of the beak and the sound that it's making.
23:56It's so sad to see this.
23:58As the days went on, the oil spread, even reaching Skoma Island to the west and Carmarthen Bay to the east and beyond.
24:15Eventually impacting around 120 miles of coastline.
24:19Growing up in Penrish, it was all about the beach.
24:32It's all about having fun.
24:34It's all about the sea and it's all about the beach.
24:38Local Justin Gottwalt was 26 when the spill hit one of his favourite beaches.
24:46The Manabir beach is a really good surf beach.
24:49It's a bit away from the main touristy points so you don't get crowds.
24:55There's some great waves here.
25:01There's some really good surfers in Penrish.
25:03I unfortunately am not one of them.
25:05You know, I am a little bit like Bambi on ice on a surfboard.
25:08But for me it's just about being in the water.
25:10Just being out there with your mates, just having a good laugh,
25:14just enjoying that friendship and enjoying what we're lucky enough
25:17and where we're lucky enough to live.
25:23Night-night, the thing that I most remember about that day when the oil hit was the smell.
25:29It was the most visceral smell.
25:30It genuinely got you in the back of the throat.
25:34It was almost like somebody had poured diesel all over you.
25:37Because wherever you went you could smell it.
25:39And then looking over the top of the cliff down onto the beach and seeing, you know, what is very golden sand, completely black, and the water covered in the oil.
25:48It was really hard to comprehend the sort of damage that was being done.
25:54It was, yeah, it was a very emotional, very heart-wrenching, because you just genuinely thought that that was the end of those beaches.
26:04It felt like the way of life was over.
26:07It felt like this part of Pembrokeshire would just die.
26:13As beaches in Pembrokeshire closed, it wasn't just wildlife at risk.
26:19Local livelihoods were on the line too, including that of hotel owner Lorna Greasley.
26:25This is Castle Mead Hotel, sits at the head of the bay in Manabir, overlooking the sea.
26:33We've been here for 38 years.
26:37On the 15th of February 1996, I woke up in the morning, opened the window.
26:46First thing that hit you was the smell, just like being on a garage forecourt, it was awful.
26:51My husband and I went down to the beach to have a look and see, you know, what was what.
27:03It was black, menacing, it was horrible.
27:11The news reports were devastating, because the whole area is very, very dependent upon tourism.
27:19We get lots of business coming for the history, the wildlife, the coast path, or just to lie on the beach or surf.
27:29It's very unspoiled.
27:32My fear was that if it didn't get cleared up in time, tourists decide to go somewhere else.
27:38All this area you can see here from the harbour to beyond Goska Rock was just black.
27:49And I'm talking sort of that depth of oil.
27:52In seaside towns like Tenby, the message was clear.
27:57The coastline had to be cleaned up as soon as possible to bring life back to the community.
28:04Tenby had a population of just over 5,000 in the winter.
28:08There's over 55,000 in the summer.
28:11This place thrives on tourism.
28:12Phil Thompson from Texaco's Pembroke refinery became the public face of the company's response during the huge clean-up efforts.
28:23The law of the land, or the law of the water, is that ship and the cargo is what they call FOB, free on board.
28:29So you don't actually own that cargo until it gets to your jetty, until the ship is tied up.
28:35So why did you guys decide to lead the clean-up?
28:39Morally, we felt we had to do it.
28:41There was no-one else that had the expertise, the finances, equipment that could do it.
28:46So when you decided to clean up the beaches, how did you go about doing that?
28:52We allowed the oil to come in from the tide.
28:55We dug trenches, then a large pit, and these were lined with heavy bitumen lining.
29:01We allowed the oil and the water to drop in there, and literally gully sucked the oil out of the pits and the trenches.
29:08So you were just extracting the oil from the beach?
29:10Taking it back to a depot just outside Tenby, and it was disposed of then in a proper manner.
29:16It became one of the largest environmental clean-ups the UK had ever seen,
29:22bringing together authorities, international specialists, volunteers and wildlife groups all in a race to save and restore the coastline.
29:33Once people started to work together to get it cleaned up, the community spirit, the team action was phenomenal.
29:39Everybody had the same goal. The same goal was to clean the beach.
29:42At the heart of the clean-up operation were the locals, including Justin.
29:49We just wanted to get involved.
29:52Fishermen, surfers, people who use the beach, shop owners, it didn't matter.
29:57I think everybody wanted to help.
30:00And there was a real sense of community.
30:03People who were bringing down drinks for the guys working on the beaches who were bringing food down.
30:07And it was a tough job. It was a really hard job to do as well.
30:11Oil was in your hair, it was on your face, it was everywhere.
30:14You'd work a 16-hour day, come back the next day and it didn't look like you'd done anything the day before.
30:19The tide had come in, the oil was back on the beaches and it looked like you'd done nothing.
30:25It just felt like every day you would stand there still.
30:32It wasn't until the first day where you came in and realised there was more sand than oil
30:36that you started to really think that actually it's starting to work.
30:40In the water you were looking, you know, 100 metres out and there was no oil out behind that.
30:50And you were starting to see that there was less and less coming in.
30:53All the effort that people had put in was really starting to make a difference.
30:57The first day back in the water, I think just a feeling of relief more than anything else.
31:10Paddling back out and not getting covered in oil, that was fantastic.
31:14And I just think there was an overall feeling of relief and a feeling that County was going to be fine and it was going to be all alright.
31:22It was just incredible.
31:23I've always appreciated how lucky I am to live here, but I think when you see something you love that radically different,
31:32when you get it back, you hold onto it a bit more and I think you get a little bit more protective about it than you maybe were before.
31:40It took around 18 months for the beaches to be fully cleaned and cost an estimated ÂŁ60 million.
31:49Beneath the waves, the effects on marine life were still largely unknown.
32:02But the spill sparked a new era of marine conservation, with naturalist and conservationist Cliff Benson leading the way.
32:11We'd gone there in the hope that we would rescue a lot of birds and there was just nothing you could do for them.
32:21We felt so small, so incapable of dealing with something on that sort of scale.
32:32After the Sea Empress, you got to thinking, what can we do in terms of recording the marine wildlife here?
32:41Particularly things like whales and dolphins, because they're the litmus, they're the things that tell you whether your immediate environment is doing okay or not.
32:50I managed to get a few of our bird watching friends together and we ended up becoming Sea Trust.
32:55Thirty years on, the Sea Trust is going strong, carrying out nearly 200 surveys a year to gather data about the marine mammals along this coast.
33:08One of the spots the team monitor is Strumble Head, 28 miles north of Milford Haven.
33:14It was an area that got badly affected by the spill.
33:20It's what's under the surface that I'm hoping to witness today.
33:24It's elusive, it's an apex predator, it's the harper porpoise.
33:31Nadia Thomsa has been the Sea Trust's charity director for two years.
33:37And I'm hoping she'll be able to help me catch a glimpse of the elusive porpoise.
33:42Why are they so difficult to spot for most people?
33:47So they're much smaller than dolphins and they've got this kind of small triangular fin so they don't have that nice kind of hooked fin that dolphins have.
33:55They're also much quieter, they're in smaller groups, they're not as kind of splashy and social as the common dolphins.
34:02So they're just generally a little bit harder to spot unless you know what you're looking for.
34:07How are the numbers doing here?
34:09So we've seen steady sightings of porpoises since 2017 when we started surveying porpoises up here.
34:17Okay. We know that we've got a resident porpoise population.
34:20How do you know? So we've been doing some porpoise photo ID.
34:23So we're up here with teams of volunteers four times a week.
34:26Nice.
34:27We're taking photos of as many harbour porpoises as we can and then we're cataloging those porpoises.
34:32More eyes on the water means more chances of spotting these marvellous mammals.
34:37So we're joining Nadia's team of expert volunteers, including marine conservation intern, Ruth Clark.
34:44Why do you love porpoises so much?
34:47They're underrated. People aren't super educated about them. They don't know that they're here.
34:51You know, dolphins have this big hype around them and they're a vital part of like, you know, the marine food chains and everything like that.
34:57So they're worth knowing about for sure.
35:00And it's more exciting when you see them, you know, because they're rarer.
35:04And what's their routine like here?
35:06We're still trying to figure it out, essentially.
35:09We know that they use strumbull as like potentially breeding grounds, feeding grounds they use strumbull for massively.
35:15So a lot of the activity you see them doing when they're moving really fast and they're going under a lot.
35:20It's kind of like feeding because they're chasing that prey.
35:23What's it like volunteering for the Trust?
35:24It's really, really cool. Like every day is completely different. We do a lot of different work.
35:29So we do work with mostly marine animals. We do a lot of marine mammal kind of research work.
35:36Try and educate like local people about the wildlife that they have on their doorstep, essentially, that they might not know anything about.
35:43They might not even know it's there.
35:47I'm feeling lucky. I think this is a good day to be here.
35:50OK.
35:51For sure.
35:54Do they stay on the surface quite a lot or does it vary?
35:59It depends on the behaviour that they're doing.
36:01So if they're feeding, you'll see them quite frequently come up and down.
36:04But sometimes, you know, you can...
36:06Oh, I think we've just had one.
36:07Yeah, we've got one pretty much straight out.
36:09Yes!
36:10Whereabouts, whereabouts?
36:11Just behind the white water if anybody's trying to get it with a camera.
36:14Oh, this is so cool.
36:15If you've got the kind of white foam...
36:17Yes.
36:18...just behind there, Ben.
36:19Nice.
36:20Come on!
36:21And Ben's on the camera.
36:22Oh, Kenzo.
36:23Porpoises!
36:24Nice.
36:25Well done, team.
36:26We've got it.
36:27High five to everybody.
36:28Well done.
36:29High five myself.
36:30This is great.
36:31Yes.
36:32So, what we do now, and the whole reason that we're here, is for our ID project.
36:39So we're trying to identify the porpoises.
36:41And the best way to do that is to be able to take photos of them.
36:44We take these photos back to Ocean Lab, we sift through them and we try and find any identifiable features.
36:49We basically have tried to build up whether we have a resident population here.
36:53So what we'll do is, when we find a porpoise and we've photographed it, we'll compare them with all the other porpoises that we've already ID'd.
37:00And quite often we'll find that they're, like, recurring sightings, like we've already seen them before.
37:05We'll be like, oh, that's cheese.
37:06Or, you know, whatever name they have.
37:08Right.
37:09That was the last name that we know.
37:10Cheese.
37:11Yeah.
37:12Cheese.
37:13I like that.
37:14Cheese.
37:15Every bit of data is recorded, building a growing picture of how these animals use the coastline.
37:20A job that is keeping Nadia and Chair of Trustees, Fran, busy today.
37:25So this is our data sheet, so the photo ID recording form.
37:29Okay.
37:30So this goes alongside all of the lovely photos we're taking of the harbour porpoises.
37:33So today's been a pretty good survey so far.
37:36We've been regularly seeing porpoises throughout the survey.
37:39We've mostly been seeing them feed in today.
37:41And then we've just had a group of common dolphins come in.
37:43Fantastic.
37:44So this is our kind of little extra notes of what else we're seeing.
37:46Yes.
37:47What sort of information are you getting with all this data?
37:49Are you finding any trends?
37:50The main aim of the project is to find out about our resident harbour porpoises.
37:55We want to know where they're feeding, where they're breeding, what are their important areas.
38:00So then we know which spots we want to protect.
38:02Right.
38:03We know that strumblehead is a really important zone.
38:05We know that a lot of animals feed here.
38:08We know that it's important, but we need to be able to show that.
38:10Yes.
38:11Now, when you say protection, what will that entail?
38:14So currently, strumblehead is in West Wales Marine Special Area of Conservation.
38:20Right.
38:21Big mouthful.
38:22Big conservation area.
38:23Yeah.
38:24But there's not a huge amount of specific protection for the porpoises.
38:28We still get some disturbance.
38:30We still get some kind of things going on that might damage our porpoises, might damage the ecosystem.
38:35Yeah.
38:36Porpoises don't like boats.
38:37Okay.
38:38Yeah.
38:39So porpoises don't really like the sound of engines.
38:41They tend to kind of scatter a little bit once they see a boat.
38:45Yeah.
38:46They're all right with kind of sailing boats and paddle boards, kayaks, things like that.
38:49Yeah.
38:50They might pop up next to you and have a little look.
38:51Yeah.
38:52But porpoises do get hit by boats occasionally.
38:56Right.
38:57Unfortunately, we see a lot of our porpoises with propeller scars.
38:59Right.
39:00And that's because of those quick, unpredictable movements.
39:03Yeah.
39:04And people chasing, which is just a huge no-no.
39:06Yeah.
39:07We just want to be able to give as much information as possible and provide that baseline data.
39:12Yeah.
39:13Of what we've got here.
39:14So that those more kind of specific zones with more specific regulations and guidelines can be put into place.
39:21Yes.
39:22It's been a real treat seeing Nadia and her team in action here on the Pembrokeshire coast.
39:27And it gives me some hope that the fantastic work like I've seen today can come out of something so terrible all those years ago.
39:37Cliff, who founded the Sea Trust, remains proud of what they're achieving here.
39:42I think the thing that I love is the fact that we've got maybe 60, 70, 80 volunteers that help us either in the shop or doing like you saw them doing the photo ID.
39:54Yeah.
39:55And that shows how much we're a community.
39:58The other thing is that oil pollution was our big worry then.
40:02Now it's plastic pollution.
40:04We've got tons of old fishing nets and things.
40:06Yeah.
40:07And we collect them from harbours round about in Pembrokeshire.
40:11And then it goes off to be recycled in Cornwall.
40:14Amazing.
40:15Do you have any hope for the future?
40:17So long as we get the sort of support that people like our interns that are so full of enthusiasm.
40:24Yeah.
40:25And just blow my mind, you know.
40:27And so they need that kind of support from up above.
40:30And I hope that we'll get that in the future.
40:32Absolutely.
40:39It's amazing how when a disaster like this happens, everyone gets stuck in.
40:44You can see it today with all the volunteers, with Cliff, with Nadia, with Ruth.
40:48They were all wanting to do their bit to make this place a better place.
40:57We're seeing the positives.
40:58We're seeing the incline in a few of these animals like the common dolphins, the harbour porpoise.
41:05This is good news.
41:07And may it continue.
41:14The weather here in Pembrokeshire has been blustery, to say the least.
41:21But if you'd like to know what's in store for the week ahead, here's the Countryfile weather forecast.
41:26Hello there.
41:32It has been windy at times this year.
41:34But the main story has just been the amount of rain that's fallen that's led to the flooding.
41:39Now, I picked out the wettest spots in each four home nations.
41:42But particularly worthy of note, the rainfall in Catesbridge and Eboyne in Scotland.
41:47Both of these locations having half a year's worth of rain in, what, just the first six weeks or so of the year.
41:55Earlier on today, this cloud brought a mixture of rain, sleet and snow.
41:59That wintry weather was continuing for a bit longer across East Anglia, but it has moved away.
42:04And then following on from that, we're in a showery airstream overnight tonight.
42:08Some of these showers in the west could be heavier and there'll be more frequent showers across the western side of the UK as well.
42:14Enough of a breeze to keep temperatures above freezing.
42:17So not as cold as it has been over the last couple of nights.
42:20There is the risk of a touch of frost, though, across some northern parts of Scotland.
42:23And here, as we get more of a northerly wind, actually, the showers will turn wintry over some of the hills.
42:29These showers initially across Northern Ireland, western parts of England and Wales will get blown over towards eastern areas.
42:35But there will be a bit of sunshine in between.
42:37Quite a blustery wind towards the southwest. Temperatures into double figures.
42:41And these sort of temperatures are near the average for this time of the year.
42:45So we've got a very showery start to the week.
42:48But then for a few days after that, we're looking at a lot of dry weather, but it will be colder and there'll be some frost around at night as well.
42:55And that's because this area of low pressure is going to pull away into the North Sea, taking away most of the showers.
43:02And high pressure is going to build down from the northwest, bringing that colder but drier weather.
43:07A few wintry showers will continue across the far north of Scotland.
43:10And there'll be a cold, strong wind blowing down some of these North Sea coasts of England with the odd shower.
43:15More cloud coming into the far southwest later, but otherwise a dry day with plenty of sunshine and lighter winds as well.
43:22But it will be a bit colder actually on Tuesday with a chillier start to the day.
43:27Those temperatures are going to be around five to seven degrees.
43:30Now, this weather system here will threaten to bring some rain into the southwest,
43:34but it's not going to move across the UK because it's going to get blocked off by that area of high pressure.
43:39And for the eastern parts of the UK, the winds will be a lot lighter and it should be dry with some sunshine.
43:44Stronger wind though here in the southwest close to Northern Ireland.
43:47This is where we're going to see some rain, perhaps some snow over the moors in the southwest, perhaps the Brecon beacons as well.
43:53And again, we've got typical temperatures six degrees or so after starting possibly as I was minus 10 in some central and northern parts of Scotland.
44:02That weather front that's in the southwest then splits into two.
44:05That area of low pressure moves away into France.
44:07This weather front here will start to bring some rain in across Northern Ireland, maybe a little bit of snow as well.
44:13And that wintry mix will push its way into western parts of Scotland.
44:16We'll see more cloud coming in towards northwestern areas.
44:19The best of the sunshine will be towards the southeast of the UK.
44:22And again, after a chilly start, we've got temperatures typically at sixes and sevens.
44:27But we are going to find that colder air getting pushed away towards the end of the week.
44:32We've got milder winds coming in from the Atlantic, but that will turn the weather more unsettled.
44:38We'll see some further spells of rain pushing across from the west during Friday.
44:42And again, maybe a little bit of sleet and snow over some of the hills in Scotland.
44:47There will be a stronger southwesterly wind, but temperatures are going to be higher.
44:51Come the end of the week, we're around nine to 11 degrees.
44:55And it looks like this milder air will continue into next weekend.
44:59We're in Pembrokeshire meeting the people who came to the rescue when the Sea Empress oil spill hit these waters 30 years ago.
45:17We certainly tried to save an awful lot. We washed over 500 birds.
45:23And where wildlife and people's livelihoods were at risk.
45:27Once people started to work together to get it cleaned up, the community spirit was phenomenal.
45:32When you see something you love that radically different, when you get it back, you get a little bit more protective about it.
45:45The Sea Empress disaster left a deep mark on Pembrokeshire and on those who grew up loving these beaches.
45:54For local artist Anna Waters, it was a moment she's never forgotten.
45:59So I first heard about the Sea Empress disaster when I was working in my first teaching post.
46:05I returned home, put on the news and saw the beaches of my childhood smothered with oil.
46:10To see that horrible black oil everywhere causing so much damage to the wildlife and the environment was just really vile, really terrifying.
46:22Originally from the South Wales valleys, Anna spent many of her childhood summers
46:27on the Pembrokeshire coastline, which helped her forge a lifelong connection with the area.
46:34We would stay in a caravan at Wiseman's Bridge.
46:37We were fortunate to have that caravan throughout my childhood until my university days.
46:41So I became very, very familiar with this area.
46:44Yeah, we have so many happy memories of sharing time with family, sharing time with friends.
46:50It became a part of where I was from in many ways.
46:53Anna now lives here in Tenbe, painting the Pembrokeshire landscape that shaped her childhood.
47:00Her latest work is inspired by a photograph taken during the oil spill.
47:06She wants to capture just how much the beach has changed since the disaster hit.
47:11So I've got with me one of the photographs that I saw from the local press at the time of the oil spill.
47:19I really like it because it's very nicely framed. It's got that lovely angle on Togoska rock.
47:28But with 30 years now past since that fateful day, the landscape has somewhat changed.
47:35So this is roughly the area in which I think, you know, the photographer probably stood.
47:41We've got the same kind of angle, but we've got no foreground rock in this area.
47:46We've got a decrease in sand level on South Beach.
47:49And it's actually coming around Castle Hill and getting deposited on this beach.
47:54So actually this beach is far, far higher sand level than it did back 30 years ago when the oil spill happened.
48:01Once she finds the right spot, Anna begins a quick sketch, making notes of colours, marks, shapes and shadows before the landscape shifts with the tide.
48:12So with my sketches, they're not works of art in themselves.
48:17You know, most of my sketchbooks end up splattered with paint anyway from my studio.
48:24I'm logging down which way the light is coming in.
48:29I'm hoping that with the composition I've got some nice powerful green in the foreground.
48:34I'm wanting this painting to be really celebratory and show the good health of the beach now.
48:40And the green weed is a real indicator of that.
48:43Anna was passionate about art, but it wasn't until she developed a long term illness that she took it up full time.
48:51I became a teacher, secondary school teacher for many years, which I loved, absolutely loved teaching.
48:58But I became very unwell with Lyme disease.
49:01So the symptoms got worse and worse actually.
49:04And I became quite immobile.
49:06I was sleeping for many, many hours.
49:09But I started to draw because that was something I could do.
49:13So painting has helped improve my health because, well, actually it's something that I've discovered,
49:19actually aids me on a cellular level.
49:22It's more than just a distraction because what it does, it actually slows your heart rate.
49:27It actually puts you into sort of a mild sort of trance state really, which is very, very therapeutic for the body.
49:36The sea was really important to my recovery because I would sit and I would stare at sea for hours actually,
49:46because I would walk to the beach and that was a big effort for me.
49:50So I would spend quite a while on the beach in order to sort of recover, in order to walk back.
49:55And I would, you know, watch the waves.
49:58And actually, you know, I found out since that, you know, that staring at the waves also puts us into a trance-like state,
50:06where again, we lower heart rate.
50:09So, yeah, I learned a lot about how obviously what I was doing at that time was aiding my wellbeing.
50:15And, yeah, really, really repairing where I was at.
50:19I'm just going to flick in some paint here behind these rocks just to give an indication of a wave breaking on the back of the rocks.
50:35I think when we look at the rocks, you know, stand there and really observe them.
50:43Obviously the light brings a lot of colour variation.
50:47So I'm just, you know, bringing these rocks to life.
50:51I want people to be able to see our range of colour.
51:00So I've got two different greens here.
51:02One sap green, one is a green gold colour that I quite like using.
51:07It's ideal for sort of sunlit scenes.
51:10The fact that there's quite a lot of green seaweed on this particular section of rock.
51:15Yeah, it's wonderful to see that.
51:16And that's really why I was keen to include it.
51:19It's showing, bang, you know, great health.
51:21Anna's work is a fantastic reflection of how far the beach has come over the past 30 years.
51:28At the time, it was devastating for a lot of local people.
51:31People were in tears here.
51:33But it passed, you know, the response was incredible in terms of the immediate clean-up.
51:40And then nature did the rest of the job.
51:42So what it's taught us is that, you know, horrific times might come, chaos might come into our lives.
51:48But we go beyond that, you know.
51:51You know, my intentions are to celebrate the health now of that beach.
51:58You know, it's 30 years on, full recovery.
52:01And it's a stunning beach, a place that I love and adore.
52:04And I want to show that. I want to show a kind of ta-ta moment.
52:08You know, I want to bring it alive. I want to make it look vibrant.
52:11Milford Haven is Wales's biggest port.
52:29But the Sea Empress grounding revealed problems in navigation, oversight and emergency response.
52:36Not just here, but right across the UK.
52:40The investigation that followed shook the industry.
52:44Today, keeping this waterway safe falls to the harbour master.
52:49Mike Ryan has spent a lifetime around the sea, with 30 years in the Royal Navy and eight years at Milford Haven.
52:57Now, this fragile environment and everything that moves through this harbour depend on him and his team.
53:04It means a lot personally. This is somewhere where I live.
53:08I cross the waterway every day. I walk by the waterway with my dogs all the time.
53:12It's a stunning part of the world. And it's vitally important that we protect it and look after it.
53:17How much cargo is transported through these waterways every year?
53:21We move about 1,200 tankers per year. That equates to about over 30 million tonnes of cargo in terms of oil and liquefied natural gas.
53:30And that can provide well over 20% of the UK's energy needs.
53:35That energy goes to your petrol pumps, airports, into power stations.
53:40When you're sitting in your front room or putting your cooker on, the energy is being supplied partly by Milford Haven.
53:46We used to have a saying when I was in the Navy about sea blindness, where when you're living in land, you don't quite appreciate the purpose the sea serves.
53:54The Sea Empress disaster became a catalyst for safety change. As a direct result, in 2000, the Port Marine Safety Code was introduced, transforming port safety across the UK and expanding the authority and responsibility of harbour masters like Mike.
54:15How do you keep track of it all and ensure that everyone's safe?
54:21Vessel traffic services are monitoring the waterway all the time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week by visual, by radar, by radio communications.
54:30We have professional mariners employed to bring the ships in and out safely.
54:35We have a boat crew out and about harbour patrol, so a real team effort just keeping a good oversight of what's going on in the water.
54:42Many factors can lead to shipping incidents. One of them is inadequate training.
54:47Today, Ian Howard, who is chairman of pilots at the port of Milford Haven, is taking his annual training, showing how simulators are used to prepare pilots for some of the most complex situations they could face at sea.
55:01So Ian, just talk me through what's happening here.
55:04Yeah, so we've got an exercise here where Sean's going to use two tugs to swing the vessel off on a flood tide and take it to sea.
55:12Number two, stop, back off, ready for a pull.
55:16What sort of emergency scenarios can you recreate on the simulator?
55:21We practice things such as machinery breakdown, so loss of propulsion, steering gear breakdown.
55:28We could practice a line break on a tug, onset of heavy weather and various things like that.
55:34It's just good to run through these emergency scenarios once every year.
55:37Have you had a situation you've practiced on in here, a rise out in the waterway?
55:41I did have one ship that had a propulsion problem as I was headed out the West Channel once.
55:47So this has actually helped you in your real job?
55:50Oh, certainly, yeah.
55:52Visiting Milford Haven today, there is no obvious sign of the oil disaster.
55:57But does its influence remain?
56:00Is there a sense of pride that out of the disaster of the Sea Empress incident,
56:05this port has become a kind of shining light for port safety around the world?
56:10We would certainly like to think so.
56:12Those sort of incidents only matter if you learn from them.
56:15And there's been a tremendous amount of learnings from that.
56:17Our view is we've been instrumental in taking forward a lot of those learnings.
56:21That sad event is certainly very much part of the port's history.
56:25We take our stewardship and custodianship of this beautiful waterway extremely seriously.
56:30And importantly, making sure it never happens again.
56:32We, above anyone else, are acutely aware of the consequence of things go wrong.
56:37Every day, now and into the future, safety is our number one priority.
56:41And it rightly should be to protect the environment.
56:43The lessons from the Sea Empress spill reshaped how risk in ports is understood.
56:50And how swiftly we must act when things go wrong.
56:54Today, the return of wildlife and ongoing conservation efforts show that recovery is possible.
57:02And 30 years on, this beautiful corner of Wales is thriving.
57:07If you want more insight into the Sea Empress disaster, tune in to BBC One Wales and BBC iPlayer
57:16on the 18th of February to watch the documentary, Blackwater's The Sea Empress Disaster.
57:22Gashiani, how was your day?
57:25Hamza, it's been incredible.
57:27But what a journey and what a story.
57:29I know, I know.
57:31From something so awful, something positive has come about, which is great news.
57:35And you know what's really exciting is seeing all the research, conservation and volunteering
57:39that's going on as a result of the disaster today.
57:42That's right. It can only be a good thing, really.
57:44But Hamza, I do have a question for you.
57:46Go on.
57:47Have you seen any porpoises?
57:48You know what? Yes, I saw a few of them.
57:51Very small, but beautiful. And I'm over the moon. I'm over the moon.
57:55Well, that's all we've got time for this week.
57:57Why don't you join me next week when I'm exploring the waters of the west coast of Scotland.
58:01You are joking me, Lee.
58:05What were you expecting?
58:06I was not expecting this.
58:08Look at that.
58:12This fish is massive.
58:1950, 58.
58:21Look at that big fish go.
58:23This is absolutely incredible.
58:25See you then.
58:27Bye.
58:28Bye-bye.
58:29Oh, what a view.
58:30Is that a porpoise over there?
58:32No, that's a seal.
58:34Can you not see it?
58:35It's Antiques Roadshow time, but in a different place tonight.
58:42Switch over to BBC Four for Fiona Bruce in Hampshire.
58:45New comedy, Mystic Magic in the Manchester suburbs.
58:49Michael Palin in Small Profits.
58:51Watch on iPlayer.
58:53And here on BBC Two, exciting news at the Winter Olympics with a medal ceremony next.
58:59Waspacets.
59:03Because I didn't talk about all those specialcore games.
59:06When did I run out of the winterter here, after all the winter ...
59:08Oh, on Christmas!
59:09Waspacets.
59:10So you didn't expect students to be losing theiridad as well on the next planet.
59:13I'm Bahadabha, LA, going out of this sort of darkagon đây.
59:14In the world, our holy community will charm those new wheels.
59:17Humans are the two adults out of Mexico.
59:20And all of us can only go there.
59:22When you're up to find you when you're also fighting the aura,
59:24we're approaching the dream too.
59:25But as soon as you're beginning to see them.
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