Journey to evoke awe laced with poignancy

By FRANCES GRANT

This documentary on Sir Peter Blake's voyage to Antarctica now has a poignancy, of course, far beyond its plea for viewers to sit up and take notice of the threats posed by global warming to the world's most pristine place and its vast range of wildlife.

What was intended as a journey of adventure and environmental consciousness-raising has also become a tribute to the late great sailor and a welcome posthumous insight into the man most know only as an image at the helm of a racing yacht.

And what tragic ironies abound as members of the crew name the elements of the trip which they hope will inspire viewers to care more about planet Earth: "adventure, excitement, danger."

This journey seems to be a poetic one, made to transmit awe, rather than a scientific or actively campaigning one. In his role as special envoy for the United Nations environmental programme, Sir Peter was to play the part of a kind of doctor.

He was, we were told in last week's first of two parts, to "travel to the pulse parts of the world and check on its health".

Viewers hoping for some clearer sense of who and what Blakexpeditions is all about had to be content with this grand, if nebulous, sense of purpose. In all the good intentions expressed in the programme's narration, there was no mention made in last week's first of two parts of the Blakexpedition sponsors and what role they play. Nor what qualifications Sir Peter had, apart from being a great yachtsman, in terms of environmental diagnosis.

While the journey's goal was to boldly go further south in Antarctica's George VI Sound than any vessel has gone before, the documentary stayed firmly within territory made familiar by the marine explorer Jacques Cousteau.

As such it made for a pleasant, scenic armchair ride, following the Seamaster from Argentina's southernmost city, Ushuaia, across the daunting Southern Ocean to the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and beyond.

The programme contained plenty of travelogue-type information. Computer graphics illustrating Antarctica's geographical history and the Antarctic weather patterns made it an interesting package.

There was also plenty of natural history provided, with various crew members making onland and underwater forays to look at the wildlife and explain its role in the great food chain which begins with the feeding and mating frenzies of the brief southern summer.

Antarctica's role as an early warning sign for global environmental changes was hammered home, a "barometer of change" was the phrase used by Sir Peter and rather overdone in the programme's narration.

As well as capturing the crew's sense of wonder at the place, the programme also contained some footage of underwater savagery to rival the Blue Planet, the vast BBC natural history production on the world's oceans. But without the resources and long filming time of that production, it was not nearly as comprehensive a look at life in the frozen seas.

Back on board, Sir Peter was revealed as a man with a warm sense of humour, readily charmed by the wildlife and cracking gentle jokes. And, perhaps surprisingly for a man most of us think of as a highly competitive, hard man of the sea, someone who is not afraid to express his awe at the beauty of the world or his good fortune in having such an opportunity to enjoy it.

But the programme's real sense of relish was reserved for the dangers which the Sir Peter and the crew were risking in their adventure.

That Sir Peter, a meticulous planner with such experience of ocean voyaging, should be killed in a surprise attack by Amazon bandits, is made all the more shocking for the brutality of the irony.

* Heart of Ice: Blakexpeditions TV One, 8.30 pm

Peter Blake, 1948-2001