I got a new job!
I cut seaweed
What we do, you go down to the shore and you get your boat
and you find a nice space with nice, long seaweed
you cut it, you get a net, you wrap it in a big ball
and you bring it in and then it gets weighed
and you get paid by the tonne
Nice offshore wind in that direction
It's going to kind of favour it even more later on today
We going to start earning some pennies?
Good, good
And Casey here is showing me the ropes
Oy!
There we go
Gardening's very good for your mental health
Good for the soul
You're outdoors
you're taking in all the kinda nature and the scenery and stuff
and getting the vitamin D
I'm a bit like this job reminds me of being a gardener of the sea
Great thing is I don't have any clients
Just mother nature
There's good money to be made
because seaweed is like a superfood now, innit?
It's used for so many things
like good for your face, good for your body
So everyone's after it
They put it in your animal feed and it's good for plants
And we're here
Flippin hell, I could go home now
We need tae get cutting cause the tide's going out
Right, come on then
I'm following in the footsteps of crofters
who have been cutting seaweed for centuries
selling their haul as food and fertilizer
And luckily for me, it's now back in demand
But it's backbreaking work
It's not easy to get hold of people to come and harvest
We do struggle with it
So in that way, I suppose it is under threat
Like me, Casey's a city boy incomer
He came here for years before making the big move
Who would have thought a degree in geography
would lead to a job in seaweed harvesting?
I didn't know anything about it until
until I moved to the island
So what we want to do is cut it in a way
that's going to regenerate and grow back fast
so we can then come back and harvest it again in a few years
If I was to just pull this off the rock now
it's going to take a long time for new recruitment to happen
The harder you work or the more time you put into it
the more seaweed you're going to cut
and then at the end of the day, heavier your weight's going to be
and the more you get paid
One of the best jobs I've ever had
No, I think there's a lot of transferable skills from gardening
He's got the squat and the technique
Just keep bending over
and cutting the seaweed
Shut up
We start at the tide goes out
so we can access the seaweed as it becomes visible
and we cut as much as we can before the tide comes back in
After six hours in the water, the tides come in
bringing the cut seaweed to the surface so we can harvest it
Start pulling slowly towards yourself
So as you can see there's lots of floats at the top
Basically, we're pulling the two sides of the ring together
so we can make a massive ball
But it's easier said than done because the ground is treacherous
It's a funny balancing act
It's kind of fun at the end of the day
Just don't fall in
That's a big old ball we got today
It takes around four years for the seaweed to replenish
But while it grows back, there's always more than enough
to cut all over the island
This lot will do nicely for animal or human food or organic fertilizer
I never thought about cutting seaweed, but now I'm in it
and just like this is me to a tee
I'm happy
The harvest will get picked up tomorrow
and taken to the factory to be weighed
What's it gonna be, what we gonna get?
Alex has just got money signs in his eyes
Money, ch-ching!
Casey reckons this lot weighs around seven tonnes
How much?
£272
There you go
Alright, see you later man
Thank you, Casey
Thank you very much
That means I only need to work every other week
So very different from my life in London