Podcast by Seaful | Cal Major
Our Ocean
Bringing to life the Ocean's most pressing and beautiful stories to Deepen Ocean Insight and Empower Ocean Citizenship. Brought to you by Seaful, the UK charity dedicated to connecting people to our ocean.
Our Ocean
Latest episodes
21 May 2025
Sharks, Skates and Scotland's Incredible Underwater World
What do you imagine when thinking of scuba diving in Scotland? Chris Rickard takes us on an exciting journey underwater and shares the good, the bad and the ugly from thousands of dives around Scotland.
Through decades of diving he has made some amazing and terrible discoveries. He's experienced everything from the smallest molluscs engineering entire seabeds, to the largest apex predators, which inspired him to set up Shark and Skate Scotland, to the hidden destruction befalling the seabed. In this episode, Chris takes us for a deep dive into Scotland's underwater world, and explains why he thinks everyone should experience our native ocean wildlife for themselves...
Shark and Skate Scotland: https://www.facebook.com/sharkandskate.scot/
Macduff Marine Aquarium: https://www.macduff-aquarium.org.uk
Marine Conservation Society's Good Fish Guide: https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/
Our Seas Scotland: https://www.ourseas.scot
Project Seagrass: https://www.projectseagrass.org
TV Series: Shark with Steve Backshall
The Our Ocean Podcast is brought to you by Seaful - the UK charity dedicated to connecting people to our ocean.
For more information about Seaful, please visit our Website, Instagram or Facebook.
To donate to Seaful, please go to https://seaful.org.uk/donate/
For questions or suggestions, please email us - podcast@seaful.org.uk
You can connect with The Our Ocean Podcast's host Cal Major through her Website, Instagram or Facebook.
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01:00:55
14 May 2025
Swimming around Iceland - Ross Edgley shares his 'Why'
"Your reasons to continue have to be bigger than your reasons to stop." Ross recounts some truly amazing ocean experiences, and what kept him going on his world-record circumnavigation of the UK in 2018, swimming for up to 12 hours a day for 157 days (spoiler alert, there were some incredible animal encounters!).
His next challenge is difficult to imagine: In his words, it isn't a sprint, it isn't even a marathon - it's a migration. Swimming around Iceland. This time, in the search of eDNA to show us exactly what's living in Iceland's seas...
You can read more about his epic challenge here: https://dryrobe.com/blogs/latest-news/why-ross-edgley-is-swimming-the-entire-coastline-of-iceland
Thank you so much to dryrobe for supporting the production of this episode!
The Our Ocean Podcast is brought to you by Seaful - the UK charity dedicated to connecting people to our ocean.
You can donate to Seaful here: https://seaful.org.uk/donate/
For more information about Seaful, please visit our Website, Instagram or Facebook. For questions or suggestions, please email us - podcast@seaful.org.uk
You can connect with The Our Ocean Podcast's host Cal Major through her Website, Instagram or Facebook.
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39:12
14 May 2025
Rewilding Scotland's Sea part 2 - Native Oysters
This is about a tiny but mighty creature creating entire underwater ecosystems! We get hands on with Native Scottish Oysters in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, with Ailsa Mclellan of Seawilding. Ailsa is an amazing marine scientist and ocean campaigner, and explains how Marine Habitat Restoration could be the antidote to the destruction of the seabed, and a boost for people's hopefulness...
This is our second episode with Ailsa, and we're delighted to welcome her back to the podcast today. We head to Ullapool harbour to check our the native Scottish oysters she is nurturing as part of a wider project with Seawilding.
Seawilding (seagrass and native oysters): https://www.seawilding.org
Native Oyster Restoration Alliance: https://noraeurope.eu
Seagrass Spotter: https://seagrassspotter.org
iNaturalist - explore and share natural world observations: https://www.inaturalist.org
The Our Ocean Podcast is brought to you by Seaful - the UK charity dedicated to connecting people to our ocean. For more information about Seaful, please visit our Website, Instagram or Facebook. For questions or suggestions, please email us - podcast@seaful.org.uk
You can connect with The Our Ocean Podcast's host Cal Major through her Website, Instagram or Facebook.
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31:11
14 May 2025
Rewilding Scotland's Sea part 1 - The Seabed
Ever wondered what's actually growing on Scotland's seabed? Turns out it's more important than many of us may imagine! And there are big waves being made to protect and restore degraded habitats. Ailsa Mclellan talks us through how and why we need to create better protection for Scotland's seabed, who has the right to have a say in this, and introduces us to a tiny but mighty species which can play a part in doing just that.
Ailsa is a marine scientist and ocean campaigner living in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. She works for the charity, Seawilding, restoring native oysters to Loch Broom.
In this episode, she discusses the difficulties of campaigning, who actually has the right to a say in how our ocean is managed, and how it feels to be working hands on in positive marine habitat restoration.
Seawilding (seagrass and native oysters): https://www.seawilding.org
Our Seas Scotland: https://www.ourseas.scot
Shore Guides:
The Essential Guide to Beachcombing and the Strandline, and The Essential Guide to Rockpooling, both by Steve Trewhella and Julie Hatcher
Collins Pocket Guide - Sea Shore of Britain and Europe by Peter Hayward, Tony Nelson-Smith and Chris Shields
The Our Ocean Podcast is brought to you by Seaful - the UK charity dedicated to connecting people to our ocean.
For more information about Seaful, please visit our Website, Instagram or Facebook. For questions or suggestions, please email us - podcast@seaful.org.uk
You can connect with The Our Ocean Podcast's host Cal Major through her Website, Instagram or Facebook.
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51:21
14 May 2025
Introducing The Our Ocean Podcast
Welcome to Our Ocean: the lungs of our blue planet, one ocean which connects us all, and which we all have the right to understand and care about. In this podcast, we'll be delving into what's out of sight in our magnificent ocean, diving deep into the incredible, life-giving ecosystems and their inhabitants, and hearing from the amazing Ocean People standing up for their protection.
We're so delighted your here, and can't wait to go on a journey together as we explore, connect to, and protect Our Ocean.
This podcast is brought to you by the UK charity, Seaful, dedicated to connecting people to our ocean.
To learn more about Seaful, please visit our Website, Instagram or Facebook, or to donate to Seaful, please go here, thank you!
For questions or suggestions, please email us - podcast@seaful.org.uk
You can connect with The Our Ocean Podcast's host Cal Major through her Website, Instagram or Facebook.
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01:35