Harbour Lives S02E07 - Episode 7

In today's episode, Ben finds out about the people who enjoy some of Dorset's more unusual lifestyles. First he meets professional gardeners Ness and David Maskell who've opted out of the rat-race to become caretakers of the harbour's most deserted landscape: Green Island. Living a self-sufficient lifestyle, the couple have a massive job on their hands to battle against this overgrown wilderness and return the island to its former glory. Ben helps Ness forage for nettles to make her homemade soup which they serve up for the island's owner, multi-millionaire Edward Iliffe. It's a dreamy lifestyle with obvious echoes of the seventies hit series ‘The Good Life'.

Back on the mainland, we meet a Dorset carpenter who's built a reputation for himself scouring the county's beaches for driftwood to turn into his own unique creations. Wayne Willett's works of art can fetch over a thousand pounds, but finding the right piece of driftwood can take a lot of patience. After a local tip off, Wayne tracks down an old groin which he decided to transform into a lamp. But will anyone want to buy his hard-crafted masterpiece?

And while the coastline provides the perfect setting for Wayne's work, all its nooks and crannies also prove the perfect cover for illegal activity. The job of monitoring UK shores for criminal activity falls to the Home Office agency ‘Border Force' whose recent successful raids include the seizure of over one tonne of cocaine worth millions of pounds aboard a super yacht. Today, Ben is given special permission to board Her Majesty's Cutter ‘Protector' as they patrol the Dorset coast. Once at sea, it's not long before Border Force decide to investigate one yacht in particular and Ben joins their only female officer, Nicola, as they board the boat to investigate.