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[wind chime tinkles]

[footsteps]

Yeah, well, here we are.

Five days on the island already.

Things are going great.

The dunes all around.

Isolation all about.

But the work is the most important thing.

And that's why I'm here.

I'm gonna do it.

Carry on, push through, do the monitoring work.

Chase the seals. Never forget.

Never forget the seals on Mercury Island.

So anyway, this is just to say that

basically, this guy

is fucking glad to be back here for a while.

[birds call]

Down the mountain to the desert.

[Joëlle] And then?

When we get to the desert... When you first get to...

The first desert, you turn left.

You drive for about 300K,

then you get to the second desert, and you turn right.

[Joëlle] In 1988, I went to visit my brother, Yves,

on an island off the Skeleton Coast called Ichaboe Island.

We drove through the Namib Desert to Lüderitz,

which is the harbour from which the boats leave

to go to the Guano Islands.

Yves is a nature conservationist.

There are very few young men

who would have wilfully signed up

to manage 50,000 gannets on a remote island

where there was absolutely nobody.

His enthusiasm for what he was doing completely intrigued me,

and I wanted to go and see for myself.

As we got closer and closer to Ichaboe,

I could just smell this pungent guano, birdshit.

And then the sounds. It's a cacophony.

[birds call]

[gannets and penguins call]

[Yves] When you step onto Ichaboe,

if you've got a passion for seabirds,

it's mind-blowing;

the entire island being covered from one end to the other

with an incredible gannet population, at that time,

along with thousands of penguins

and thousands of bank cormorants and Cape cormorants.

Ichaboe Island is just mesmerising.

[birds call]

[Joëlle] Yves was a headman on Ichaboe.

Headmen were first posted to these bird islands

in the late 1800s,

after guano harvesters mined the islands flat

and left nothing for the birds to nest in.

By the time Yves got there,

industrial fishing was forcing the birds

to travel further and further to find food for their young,

threatening their survival even more.

By protecting the seabirds,

my enigmatic brother had found his niche as a conservationist,

and it was heart-warming for me to see.

[Yves] In the morning here,

it's the best time to come and check who's male and female,

because you can see all the footprints

on the females' backs. You can see all the footprints.

From the males when they copulate with females.

Then the male actually on the female's back,

standing on the wings and the back there.

And when the ground gets nice and moist, like it is now,

you can see who's been banging away at night.

[Joëlle] Yves's exhilaration with the natural world

was contagious.

I encouraged him to video his experiences,

and I would film whenever I could visit.

Later, he entrusted me with his diaries.

After my visit, he wrote, "14th September, 1988."

"My sister came to visit."

"At last, I could reveal Ichaboe to someone else."

"There were bird densities like I hadn't experienced."

"The cherry on the top was when the gannets

obliterated a crayfish boat from view."

"The snow-white orchestra showing off

just before she left."

[birds call]

[Yves] After I spent four years on Ichaboe Island,

there was a survey vessel going up to Mercury Island.

Mercury had been abandoned for nearly 20 years,

and there was a seal problem developing there.

Since I was the conservator on Ichaboe,

my boss, Dr Williams, said, "Can you please come with me,

and do an assessment and a survey of the island,

and go and look what's going on there?"

I was very excited to go there.

So I said, "I'm jumping on that boat."

[bird whistles]

[birds call]

[Joëlle] Of the island, author Lawrence Green once wrote,

"Some forgotten shipmaster

showed a touch of genius when he named Mercury Island."

"That bare rock with the birds crying onto it

shakes like quicksilver

whenever the sea comes in from the south-west

and dashes into the cave."

[waves crash]

"This is the place

where one man after another has gone mad."

[Yves] Wildness. Utter wildness.

I was absolutely astounded.

You don't get wilder than this.

Mercury is so remote and so far from civilisation.

That augmented the feeling of wildness.

It looks like a sleeping, kind of crocodilian,

dinosaur-ish, weird creature.

The whole place was cosmic.

[birds call]

They dropped me at the bottom of the jetty

and I climbed up the stairs,

and I was faced with this wave of seals coming straight at me.

And I just stood there, frozen.

There was nobody on the island.

The whole settlement was deserted.

We walked around the island, went right up to the top,

and as far as we could go.

All we could see was this complete imbalance,

with a seething mass of seals everywhere

bumping into every seabird colony.

It became a competition for space.

We realised then that the whole thing

would eventually be colonised by seals.

No gannets, no penguins,

the whole island would have just gone to the seals.

Should we just allow nature to take its course?

Since we were the ones that put it in the wrong place,

now there's only one species on this planet

that can make it right, and that's us human beings.

[seals bark]

Then we made a plan, right then.

Mercury Island has to be manned,

and the seals must be chased off,

if we wish to prevent this local extinction.

I was the perfect person at the perfect time

to go to the perfect place...

which was in total disorder.

[birds call]

[seals grunt and bark]

[seal barks]

[animal noises continue, muffled]

[Joëlle] "17th October, 1990."

"Animal and wild surround."

"The seals, like the sound of a nightmare on repeat,

seem to be talking in human sentences,

in between the growls, burps, farts, whines, squeals, snorts,

raucous shouts and hysterical laughter."

"How the birds have managed to survive these conditions,

I don't know."

"Let me leave it at that for tonight."

[seals grunt]

[birds call]

[penguin honks]

[Yves] Yes, good morning, pal.

I'm here on Mercury Island. It's unbelievable. [chuckles]

[penguin honks]

[in time with penguin's honks] Un-believ-able!

What an absolutely...

[penguin calls]

...beautiful ball of a planet this is!

I just can't believe it, man. It's absolutely stunning!

And... there they go.

And now it's just me and the dudes.

[Joëlle] "Shout, scream and whip."

"I've got 15,000 seals to deal with."

"Ichaboe is a civilised world compared with this lot."

"Once, this island would have had a myriad of species

living in equilibrium."

"Unmanned, the seals have made it their domain."

"With no one to deter them, and no predators,

their numbers grew and grew."

"Their heavy bodies destroy everything in their path."

[seals bark]

Shoo!

Shoo!

[seal grunts]

[waves crash]

And here we are!

The harsh realities thereof.

Had a wash, shower, washed my hair.

Put on a set of new clothes. Clean.

All spruced up and brand new.

This is where I am the king.

This is my domain.

It's out of the wind. My perfect bowl.

We're in a little amphitheatre, out of the wind.

Bank Rock...

and the sky!

Let... Let us walk along this intricate little path here.

It's really a kind of path that, er...

[coughs] You need to have goat's feet, man! Goat's feet!

You gotta be nifty on your toes,

you gotta make sure you land with your...

Your foot's gotta be...

[waves crash]

Sorry, just need to...

Yeah, sorry, Vid, I can't hold your hand now, eh, because...

[chuckles]

That's fair enough without a video in your hand,

but when you have, er... Phew!

I really thought I was gonna fall.

And I'm stuck here now.

I've just about had heart failure here,

because I didn't have my feet in the right place.

They have to be...

in the right place!

Shit!

So you see, that's the goat path.

Part of the Earth

man doesn't venture to too often.

And when you do, you do so with trepidation.

Yeah, and that's Uranus Cave.

The hollow mountain in the sea.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! [laughs]

And that's Growler Rock.

He just growled. The Growler!

I call him the Growler, you know? Ha!

Yes, most impressive, most impressive.

Most impressive indeed!

So there we have the island getting litten up.

And there's my friend, Bank Rock.

That is the head of the very beast.

With the eye right in the centre.

And then get right onto the top, like we're riding on its back.

There, by Jupiter Peak, or on top of the Dragon's Spine.

Surrounded by all this incredible isolation.

♪ Splendid isolation

♪ I don't need no one

The true essence of island living

is to be by yourself.

And nobody else knows that better than me.

[Joëlle] "I have just acupunctured the island

with about a hundred needles that show the places

that need to be guarded against the seal invasion."

"Magnetic Mercury attracts them

and the island sure offers a haven

for those furry, whiskered beasts."

"Niches and ledges everywhere."

"But the seals have an alternative."

"The birds do not."

[wind chime tinkles]

*[Yves]

*[bird whistles]

[bird whistles, chirrups]

What a pleasure to have a little thing like that around.

-He just, like, softens your... -[bird whistles]

...softens an island soul's heart!

[bird chirrups]

Right, I'll put you back in the, erm, studio. [chuckles]

There's a good lad.

And there are some penguins in my room.

Let's go and see what these little fuckers are up to.

Eh?

There he is now.

All huddled up on my chest.

And I'm just gonna keep him like this until he's dry.

Eh?

Our patient has reached hospital status.

And we're gonna give him a hot-water bottle.

Island-style hot Oros bottle.

There they are, both together.

The penguin chick and the Oros bottle.

And it's gonna warm it up nicely

under the blanket for him, there.

Finn has made a dramatic recovery.

[laughs]

Hey! It was me that saved your life, my friend.

Now you're all hot and excited and full of beans.

Yeah.

We'll put you in the greenhouse where there's a wet floor.

[laughs]

Well, that's how a penguin chick recovers.

Yeah.

Seals are the most radical animal in the world.

They are at the top of their evolutionary scale

and that is what makes them so amazing.

You can't imagine a better seal.

It is the most agile creature.

Far more agile than a dolphin.

They've got a thick skin. They've got a layer of blubber.

They've got an undercoat of fur.

They've got a top coat of fur.

They're completely equipped to deal with the cold.

They can dive deeper. They can swim further.

They can stay longer out at sea.

They are the most incredible animals.

So, since there's too many of them,

obviously they have an impact on more vulnerable species,

like the gannets and the penguins and the cormorants.

[birds call]

He's one fine little fellow, this one. Alias Kingston.

And he's been brought up for the last week or so.

Them dirty feet.

But he's doing all right.

Hey, it's breakfast time, pal.

And one day, you're gonna see that swim past you, bru.

It's gonna swim past you like that.

So now, let's have you. Come on.

Come on. Come on.

That's the way!

That's the way!

On Mercury Island,

I did the feeding and foraging of bank cormorants.

They are the most important bringers of nest material.

They swim out to a particular bank,

that's why they're called bank cormorants,

where seaweed grows, and they rip it off the rock,

and bring it back to the island.

[calls]

It's crucial to have the bank cormorants there

to be able to provide the other birds with nest material.

These are so I know exactly who you guys are, eh?

For penguins, I used to mark a nest, mark the adults,

and when the eggs came out, I used to mark them, as well.

A little bit shy this morning.

And you weigh them every five days

from the day they hatch until the day they leave.

They're incredibly entertaining.

They've all got individual characters,

especially if they're surrounding your house,

and you see the same ones every day.

And I did the same thing with gannets, as well.

They only lay one egg,

so you weigh those chicks from day one until day 95.

They're completely helpless

for the first two weeks of their lives

and you just watch this little thing grow

from a bald chick into its down

and then into its feathers,

and then getting ready to fledge,

and watch its weight pick up every day.

And for me, it was just fascinating.

It drove me out there every day for years.

Nothing! Nothing!

[Joëlle] "Gannets playing in the gale."

"They circle the island,

and I watch them twisting necks, adjusting lenses."

"The blue accurate eyes stare down at me inquisitively

as they make their sounds to avoid collision of wings."

"I really, really love gannets."

"Sometimes I think I could stay forever."

"Strange how I miss absolutely nobody."

"No one. Not a soul."

"Do I have something others don't have?"

"Or do I lack something others have,

so I can live like I do,

on a windblown, unfriendly place, like Planet Mercury?"

*We had four kids under five.

*Five under eight. [chuckles]

*We continued going

backwards and forwards to Belgium

and... and South Africa.

Yvie was such a weird little thing.

I didn't know what to do with this child.

I mean, he wouldn't talk until he was three.

He pretended he was a little dog when he was small.

When I told him to do something,

he would bark at me.

[laughs]

When he first went to school, he was impossible,

he wouldn't do any work whatsoever.

He'd sit in the classroom

and stare out of the window and think about the sea.

I built a four-bedroomed house.

We put a hut for him in the bottom of the garden.

He wanted that and he loved it.

I never worried about him being by himself

because I just thought he would know how to handle it.

*[Yves]

It's water day.

Getting brought along by the Tobias Hainyeko.

Sweet fresh water!

I think I'd better get some clothes on.

Been kaalgat all day. [laughs]

♪ Water of love, deep in the ground

♪ But there ain't no water here to be found

Yeah, well, we had our re-supply,

and this is what the place looks like afterwards.

Everything stacked up here.

And then over here, we're ready, they can drop the H bomb,

because the shop is completely kitted out

with almost everything imaginable.

The little shop on Mercury.

Here you make all your purchases.

Erm... what can I say? [chuckles]

All alone on the bloody island once again,

but that's the way one wants it to be.

Sometimes you just wanna get away,

you don't want anybody to hassle you,

you don't want anybody to be there.

You wanna run around kaalgat.

You wanna paint the buildings bright purple.

You want to...

Anything. You just can do anything.

That's the best part of being alone.

♪ Blue neon light, I catch you on the morrow

♪ I catch, catch me now, I think I got your number

♪ I don't care anyhow

♪ I think about tomorrow

♪ Ah, la-di-da-di-dee

♪ Da-da, da-da, ta-deeda

♪ Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da

♪ Blue neon light

♪ Da, da-da, da-da

♪ Da-de-da, dada-da

[Yello] ♪ My head's still full of poison

♪ What I do is insane

This is a party. This is, basically, I'm having a party.

You got that, Vid?

♪ I wake up in the evening

♪ The sun is still around

[Yves] I've had one beer and one bottle of champagne!

Ain't seen no hide, no hair, no... no...

nothing of another human being.

Nothing! Nothing!

Are there actually human beings out there?

You want some, Vid?

You're the only one with brains around here.

Maybe you shouldn't have some.

♪ Another day

♪ Already night

-♪ Blue neon light -Look at this eye.

Just look at this eye.

You have got a complex.

I know you're a reflection of myself. But just watch it.

It's you!

A reflection of you, eh, guy?

It's right in the centre of the lens!

It's the return of the fly!

Yeah!

[yells]

All right, now, that's it, that's it, that's it.

You... You got me there.

OK, yeah, all right. Well, I'm gonna stop you there,

because, er, we've got some serious dancing to do here now.

[laughs maniacally]

-[music stops] -[birds call]

[Joëlle] "I just went off to make a vow to Bank Rock."

"No drink for a two-week spell."

"I find it helps if you make vows."

"A two-week break will let me get nice and fit."

"Healthy body, healthy mind. True words."

[exhales]

[Joëlle] "The Otavi seal colony is swelling

as the operation proceeds."

"It's starting to absorb

all those who are fed up with me."

"Still, I must keep at it from sunrise to sunset."

"Chasing, shouting, whipping, stoning."

"I do need a bit of a break,

although sometimes, when everything is right,

I don't want to leave here."

"After my last gannet fledges, I'm ready. Not before."

"An island is finite. That is its singular quality."

"It is whole and there is an end."

"There are birds to count. I can count all of them."

[Yves] Three male juveniles.

[Joëlle] "I draw conclusions,

then count again, over and over."

[Yves] Fifteen adults to one... [speaks indistinctly]

[Joëlle] "To create order like this, alone,

gives me a sense of control."

"As fickle as it might be,

as detached as the birds really are,

if there were no numbers, I'd have to invent them."

[Yves] Seal got him. And now I've got him.

He's recuperating fairly well.

Getting some of his strength back.

But, yeah, that gash is really quite something.

It's the fourth day now that I've got him.

He's already putting on weight.

Ate seven fish yesterday.

But the fish is passing through,

so the internals are not damaged.

He's still very shy, still very scared.

But we're gonna get you right, aren't we, mate?

[Joëlle] "There's a supreme law

that governs life here on Mercury."

"No seals allowed."

"There's no appeal, either."

"Cute pups are a menace."

"They draw their mothers back to the island,

followed by other pregnant females."

"The return of the seals year after year

is a cycle that must be broken."

"I certainly have my work cut out for me."

[Yves] It's a blistering-hot morning.

It's nine o'clock in the morning and it's already 30 degrees.

Penguins are all heading for the water's edge.

They're right here in front of the palace.

It's just a mass of penguins coming down to cool off.

But what a beautiful day for a human being.

I've been for my umpteenth swim today.

The water's a beautiful 14 degrees.

Enjoying a cup of tea.

But we're gonna go take a look outside now.

And, erm, we're gonna concentrate on the penguins.

Outside at the moment, I've taken a look out there,

and it's just dying chicks.

[penguin honks]

And if you imagine yourselves in a wetsuit,

and a pullover jersey over that,

plus a hood and a balaclava,

that's how a penguin chick feels.

So, let's go and take a look out there.

The colony's still devoid.

All those nests empty.

Right till up there,

where normally that is a mass of penguins.

A lot of them are here in the shade of the house.

And here we have the classic example of the suffering chick.

-[chick squeals] -Abandoned, alone.

Yeah, that's the natural world. It's a harsh and cruel world.

And we're gonna see the carnage now

of this baking-hot day here.

One dead chick.

One dead study chick.

Another downy.

Yet another downy.

One dying downy.

Two over there. There's two next door.

These two here.

More and more and more.

This is just absolutely devastating.

And this is just one part of the island.

*[in French]

[Joëlle] "Perched on one of my ledges over Hellfire Passage

as an orange orb sets. What a day."

"I concentrated on the seal scare in the nude."

"Got an all-over tan

and a bit of a burn on one side of the pork sausage."

"That's nothing."

"More than 30 chicks died of heatstroke."

"Vid filmed the carnage."

"What a shit way to go."

[sighs]

Opto, what's your buzz, huh?

Yeah, he's had a hard time.

He can't walk properly. He falls all over the show.

Old Opto, short for "optimistic".

Poor old Opto is full of seal-bite wounds

and going through the moult. That's why he looks so scruffy.

There's a healing seal-bite wound in his chest over there.

Right there.

And he's got another one in the flipper.

But he looks decidedly scruffy and unruly.

And hopefully, we can make him feel better.

[Joëlle] "The seals have brought out every emotion in me."

"I fume at their persistence."

[seals call]

"They're making me cruel."

"I feel like a monster,

a monster inflicting my will on the destiny of this island

that has been left to nature's cruel logic."

"Then I remind myself

that the pure face of nature left the scene long ago."

[Joëlle] "Those seals won't relent."

"And this rock is not just an island,

it's a pure blood beast."

"I wonder if I've gone crazy,

fighting off these seals like they're a dark force."

"Or maybe that's what's keeping me sane. Who knows?"

"There's no one here to tell me."

[birds call]

[birds screech]

[birds call]

*[Yves]

[Joëlle] "It's the day of the innocents."

"Unweaned, abandoned pups are weak,

exhausted, emaciated, and hungry for mother's milk."

"I have to tell myself

that these consequences are unavoidable."

"It's all to try and prevent the penguins' extinction."

"I dreamt I was sick and getting worse."

"A hard lump pushed out of my chest on the heart side."

"I could make out my mother, Joëlle, and my little brother

watching me as I died."

"How I wish I could meet my forefathers,

who might have walked this path before."

"To learn how I fit in, what steps to take."

"If only my father could lead me to other elders,

steer me to walk a different path,

guided by those I know so little about."

"Could he teach me something good for a change?"

"In the very heart of Mercury,

a war rages between sea and stone."

"Geological time accelerates."

"The centuries are sculptured in rock."

"Here, I'm humble, as in a cathedral,

and certain that one day, even Mercury will be no more."

[mother] I think Yvie wanted an anchor very badly.

He was really quite a little rebel escapist.

He was always

running away and climbing out the bathroom window

to get away from Claude.

Claude looked so nice in those pictures.

It's hard to imagine the ferocious creature

that he became.

[rain pours]

[thunder rumbles]

[penguin calls]

[birds call]

[seals bark]

[Joëlle] "Today was one of the most emotional days

of my life."

"I've never experienced such a demanding situation."

"There is so much trampling over penguins,

their nests, their eggs and chicks."

"I can't bear it."

[seals bark]

[Joëlle] "Blood in the sea feeds my anger."

"I too have made blood flow like a river."

"Is it right? Is it wrong?"

"No wonder I had my first nightmare in ages."

[birds screech]

"There were steep slopes of dogs pouring down in fear."

"They were seal-type dogs, or dog-type seals,

moving en masse, as they do in reality,

all to get away from me."

[Yves] It looks like a very nice, pleasant day

here on Mercury.

But we've had a seal

gone psychopathic,

taking out penguins.

All the empty nests.

Shit.

Fucking seals!

And whatever seal I come across now

is in for a tough time.

They can all go to hell!

I don't need this shit on Mercury, OK?

I've taken out three of the little fucks!

Except for one seal bitch over there

who's gonna get her arse tanned like there ain't no tomorrow!

You just don't know it, you stupid cow!

[grunts] Fuck!

[grunts] Bye! Bye!

I don't wanna see these fucks! [echoes]

Jeez, that's a bunch of bloody bullshit, man.

[exhales sharply]

[exhales]

A little tot of whisky.

Doesn't matter if it spills.

[clears throat]

[sighs]

For those that aren't here.

There's a howling gale going on outside here, yeah?

So, this is why I'm trying these things.

I mean, you can't really help me, yeah.

I just help... I can't really help it.

Erm... And nor can you really help me,

can you, Vid, you fucking asshole?

[wind howls]

Listen to the wind!

Woe betide the innocent ones

who fall into the devil's cauldron.

[cackles]

Power, power, power!

[yells]

That's not the way to do it!

Yeah, well, so what, eh? Fuck the rest.

[cork pops]

You're not supposed to behave like a fucking bozo.

If things are going bananas,

then they must be going great.

That's the way I feel about it.

I love you.

The whole damn goddamn lot of you.

All of you.

You funny little fellows.

You just don't know how appreciated you are

by some of us that live on this planet.

And I don't have to even mention what I think about you

and how glad I am to have you around here.

Whoopsie! Whoopsie! Yeah. [laughs]

OK, I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

We need adult penguins. Let me tell you that, Vid.

Shall we see them in the 22nd century?

I don't think I'd be able to stand it.

No, it's not, it's not, it's...

This is the worst day of my life.

[birds screech]

Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, yeah?

Switch off! Switch off!

[Joëlle] "Unlike other visits to the mainland,

the infinite desert now only mirrors how desperate I am

for the world of touch and talk."

"From here, I can hold Mercury in my hand

and see myself split in two parts that struggle to agree."

"I can see my body and my soul

wanting something other than birds and waves,

wings, wind, rock and sky."

"I wonder if it's time to lay down my weapons

and listen to myself."

"I've got to wrench myself from this contained existence

where dreams and life have begun to merge."

[wind howls]

[bird cries]

[Yves yells] On that day!

[Yves yells]

[seal barks]

[seal snarls]

[birds call]

[Yves yells, echoing] Scheizer!

[Yves screams]

[indistinct radio chatter]

[indistinct radio chatter]

[helicopter rotors whir]

[Yves grunts]

[Yves] The anger that built up suddenly burst.

I had a nervous breakdown, panic-attack kind of thing.

And I had to be taken off the island.

And I had to walk past my gannet study colony.

"Sorry, guys, I'm not gonna see you today."

"Nor you. Nor you. Nor you. Nor you."

"I'll see you when I see you."

To have this perpetual grinding thing in your brain,

which you had to do every single day, for years...

At sunrise, you get up, out of bed,

and immediately, you are in the guano,

and fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting!

What I was doing was wrong.

And nobody knows about it.

And... to get the story right...

I had to kill the pups.

[swallows]

-Do you know that? -[Joëlle] No.

Oh, right. Do you know that?

-No. -No, come on, Yves, man!

I had to kill all the pups.

[Joëlle] And do you think that affected your...

your, erm... your sanity in that way?

Of course.

-[Joëlle] Well, what... -Who wants to do that?

Who wants to, every single morning of your life,

kill every single pup that was born overnight?

Today, tomorrow, the next day, the next day.

No. Not cool.

Shouting and screaming

like a fucking sergeant major in the army,

as though seals are people.

[breathes deeply]

That you can just regiment them,

to tell them, "Listen, fuck off, you're not allowed here."

But they don't know.

And they can smell that there's a female up there

that's just had a pup.

So this one's gonna come up and have a pup, so then...

And then you've gotta kill those pups the next morning.

-Don't you know this story? -[Joëlle] No, of course not.

That's why you have a nervous breakdown, if you...

What does it do eventually to your psyche?

And that's what happened to me. I couldn't handle it anymore.

But I knew that that was the only way.

That was the only way.

They told me, "You must do this."

And I very quickly realised,

if I do this, I'm gonna get nowhere.

So, if you do that,

which was the right option in a cruel fashion,

then you are going to win the war.

And so I had to do that,

otherwise I would have got nowhere.

Absolutely nowhere.

I felt very guilty.

[ethereal music]

[wind blows]

[Yves] To be so brutal,

to be so, so, so brutal,

it had to be inside me somewhere.

That's why I was able to do it.

I lost weight, I was sick, I had panic attacks every day.

I ended up in hospital.

They got a replacement for me.

And that was it.

[Joëlle] Only by going through his diaries

have I realised the anguish my brother endured

and the remorse he was wrestling with.

But despite his fragile state,

he was determined to go back to Mercury

to stop the seals from breeding there.

Otherwise, all the sacrifices would have been in vain.

Abandoning the birds to their fate

was not an option for Yves.

[indistinct chatter]

[Yves] I'd already been in Walvis Bay

for about six months.

And there was a change of governments

and the islands were given to Namibia.

And the guy who had taken my position

had decided to stay with South Africa,

so the post on Mercury was open.

I said, "I want it."

"My job on that island is not finished."

[man] Yes, I've got old Yves here.

I don't know whether you've got anything

you want to be brought out to the island or anything? Over.

[man on radio] Yeah, put the bugger on!

It's about time we heard from him.

We've been missing him.

He suddenly disappeared off the air.

Yes, hello, Ichaboe. Captain Quicksilver here.

Going back to the planet very shortly,

so I'll see you tomorrow and hand you all your goodies.

Is there any special things that you want? Over.

[man] Ja, Yves, very good to hear your voice again

and look forward to getting you back on the island.

So, we'll see you tomorrow. Over.

[birds call]

[Yves] Even though I was still suffering from panic attacks,

I'd said, "I'm not gonna tell anyone."

"I'm just gonna see what happens."

[Yves] When something gets taken away from you,

especially in that fashion, unexpectedly,

then you realise your work, your passion,

you will do it in a blizzard, you will do it in a heatwave,

and nothing is gonna stop you from doing it.

Nothing. Nothing.

And that's why I went back there.

I said, "Thank you, dear God,

for bringing me back to this beautiful place

where I've sweated and cried and shed so much blood."

"The outside world doesn't even exist!"

-[penguins call] -[Yves whistles a tune]

[Yves] All the birds are up already.

[Yves whistles a tune]

♪ Cast your fears! Cast your fears away!

♪ Sink your tears deep into Spencer Bay

♪ Feels like I lived here for a thousand years

♪ Da-da, na-no

Well, back on Mercury.

Naturalist in exile. [laughs]

[Yves whistles a tune]

And all the happier for it.

Everything's pretty much the same.

Nice to have bankies around.

It's the one bird I really miss, this guy.

That's it, steal his nest. Steal his whole bloody nest.

[chuckles]

And look who's parking on the roof!

A whole row of crowned cormorants.

What about this park bench here?

How's about we park here and watch the sunrise?

It's built for ten.

Actually, I don't know if it's actually very nice to sit on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it is.

Yeah, wonderful park bench. All the hobos park...

-[clattering] -Fuck!

Can you believe it? The tin just... Fuck!

[laughs]

[wind chime tinkles]

Yeah, well, here we are.

Five days on the island, already.

Things are going great.

Wrap it all up. Make your models.

Have your surf. Take your rows across.

Make my bags. Do my macramé.

You can practise your hobbies.

You can learn new things, start new things.

You can do what you want.

But the work is the most important thing.

And that's why I'm here.

Chase the seals. Never forget.

Never forget the seals on Mercury Island.

Because we're gonna be chasing them seals.

But this is the time

when we don't have so many of them around.

But anyway, this is just to say that

basically, this guy,

he's fucking glad to be back here for a while.

[birds call]

When I got back to Mercury,

I had to continue to chase seals off the island.

But it was already much easier.

Eventually, I could see that my efforts were working.

And after that,

it kind of gave me a psychological confidence

over myself, which made me feel,

"Hey, snap out of it, you're gonna be all right."

*[woman on radio]

Yeah, I'm quite looking forward to it, actually.

Gives me a good chance

to get back into the whole scene, you know. Over.

"Be as busy as possible."

Gonna work a bit of penguin.

First, a sip of tea out of my penguin cup.

Those are my feet covered in seal shit.

Eventually, after losing their pups

two or three seasons in a row,

the seals slowly clicked on to the fact

that this place is not cool for seals.

So, now all we've gotta do is apply a bit of control

without killing, without culling,

so that the other species can get their foothold back.

And then to see how the seabird colonies just blossomed,

because the space was now available.

There's a fine stack of penguins for you.

Then there's a little friend over here.

Come on.

Come.

Good little scratch there.

I'm burning up all this fucking shit.

This Mercurian wants to be pure in the mind, you know.

And then what I'm gonna do

is I'm gonna make another balcony here.

Yo, Vid, you're lucky you haven't got a pair of arms

and a pair of legs, cos you'd be helping me here.

She's nice. She's nice. She's very nice.

But I don't wanna see her.

You're stuck with me, pal, in this crazy job.

So, just do your job and film. Right? Right!

Good, you little fuck. [laughs]

I was only joking, you know.

But when I'm alone like this, you must accept

that you are the only one that I can take it out on.

I hate to admit it,

but, like, half of these girls I know off by heart.

Vid, switch yourself off, my bru.

Here, this is the island, eh?

And we were standing right there on the balcony.

And there's Boy-Boy.

He's been looking at the sea all day.

Come on, in you go.

In you go, mister.

[laughs] There you go!

[penguins call]

New balcony.

And, of course,

doesn't take long for these guys to click on, eh?

Here come the boys, here come the boys,

here come the boys!

[boat engine revs]

And it's a different kind of dolphin.

It's a bloody big thing.

Wow, man!

Wow! Whoo!

Bottlenose, man! Ha!

You beautiful things!

God, I've never seen them here before!

[boat engine stops]

[waves lap]

[grunts]

Catching them right through this little gap here.

[laughs]

Action or what? Action shots. Action shots.

[waves crash]

Whoo-hoo! There they go.

And this is happening the entire length and breadth of the cove.

What a life these guys are having, man. Jeepers!

I wanna be a seal! [laughs]

I wanna be a seal!

[upbeat music]

Those panic attacks lasted for four years.

And then I told myself, "You've gotta be able to control this."

Once I could gauge when it was gonna happen,

I could implement what I had to do.

Suppress, suppress, suppress.

And it was gone.

That took four years to heal that.

[bell rings]

Don't we make a pretty little pair?

He looks the same as me and I look the same as him.

So, how's that, eh? No dying on us, eh?

[birds chirp]

After the third year, I could feel it was going right.

After the fourth year,

I could actually start relaxing.

And in my fifth year, I felt I had done my job.

[birds call]

All I could see was this thriving island

with all the birds.

Thousands, thousands and thousands

and thousands of birds.

And the seals, right there, 900 metres away,

colonised the beach on the mainland.

On the island, was this beautiful eco-system.

And so the whole of Spencer Bay was pretty much in equilibrium.

I felt absolutely fantastic.

[bird calls]

[waves crash]

[Yves] OK, Vid!

[clicks stones together]

A good man took my place.

They don't have to do what I had to do.

They can enjoy the island.

I hate killing things.

It's not what you want to do.

You don't wanna kill this clever animal

that is so agile in the water and so flipping agile on land.

Especially, if you're a feeling person.

I only kill things that I have to kill,

which would be problem animals within the sphere of my work.

Otherwise, I don't wanna kill anything.

[Joëlle] By the time Yves left,

he had spent eight years on Mercury.

One of his last diary entries reads,

"Peering into the immensity of the night sky,

what a universe we live in."

"How dare we put our planet through the risks we do."

"Humans are so gifted, yet so destructive."

"Should we merely observe the outcomes of our folly?"

"Or is it our responsibility to step in?"

"I hate man, yet I love him,

for I, too, am a man."

[Yves] Stepping ashore on the new world.

[laughs]

New world's full of kelp. [laughs]

Well, here we are, eh? Here we are.

New man, new world, new pozzie, new everything.

New town.

New island.

[birds call]

[♪ "Night Flanger" by Yello]

♪ I wake up in the evening

♪ The sun is still around

♪ The street seems to be busy

♪ I hear the traffic sounds

♪ Last night's been lousy

♪ I had a lot to drink

♪ Too many dry martinis

♪ And cans of beer to sink

♪ Another day

♪ Already night

♪ Blue neon light

♪ Blue neon light

♪ I could call my Rhianna

♪ Ask her to meet me now

♪ I think I lost her number

♪ It's too late, anyhow

♪ I could put on the TV

♪ Or I could stay in bed

♪ Decisions drive me crazy

♪ Decisions drive me mad

♪ Another day

♪ Already night

♪ Blue neon light

♪ Blue neon light