Ade at Sea: Bristol Channel

Series in which Adrian Edmondson explores Britain's maritime past and its influence today. Episode four finds Ade in the Bristol Channel, one of the most dangerous shipping lanes in the world with the planet's second highest tidal range. Aboard the ex-RNLI lifeboat Chieftain, he finds out more about the sailors who used to navigate these waters. In the South Wales port of Barry, he meets some of their successors and watches them pilot a huge cargo ship through the locks and narrows. Donning a wetsuit, Ade joins a group of women swimmers and plunges into the icy sea. He learns that in the 1920s it was two ladies who became the first people ever to swim the Bristol Channel. At Black Rock, Ade comes across a group who are preserving the ancient craft of salmon fishing using a contraption known as a lave net. Finally he takes a trip on the Olga - one of the few surviving traditional pilot cutter boats from years gone by.