♪ ♪ NARRATOR: We are a nation of islands.

PAT: Come on, you two!

NARRATOR: Over 4,000 are scattered along our coastlines, with hundreds more in our lakes, lochs and rivers.

VIDURA: Being surrounded by water, it has a very calming effect on the mind.

NARRATOR: Many of these islands are tiny.

Many are remote.

AMIE: I love so much about island life.

NARRATOR: But over 200 are called home.

♪ ♪ ROC: I don't own it because you don't own an island.

If anything, it owns me.

NARRATOR: With rugged cliffs and sandy shores, wildlife and family, and lives very different to most of our own.

IAIN: Going over the edge here is a bit cheeky.

Shall we?

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: These are the stories of our Tiny Islands.

AMIE: The fact that you just walk out your door and you're straight in to sea, that sense of freedom is amazing.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: This time living off-grid on Gometra.

Medical, first-responders, Sark style.

Eastern philosophy comes to the west of Northern Ireland and some relaxing me time in the Outer Hebrides.

[soft music] 80 miles from the south coast of England, in the Channel Islands sits the island of Sark.

It may only be 3.5 miles long and one and a half miles wide, but it has a busy population of 562.

♪ ♪ Locals will tell you that Sark is actually two islands-- Big Sark and Little Sark-- joined together by La Coupee.

This dramatic strip of sedimentary rock is over 200 feet high, but less than 10 feet wide.

This current version was built by captured German prisoners of war after the island was liberated from Nazi occupation in 1945.

Amie, a hairdresser from Guernsey, moved to Little Sark two years ago with her husband, Joe, an electrician who was born here.

AMIE: Race ya!

NARRATOR: There's no school or work today, which means precious time together.

AMIE: We moved to Sark because we wanted a change in lifestyle, so we wanted to live more of nature and we wanted to be able to be closer to family because my husband's family are here.

[uplifting music] ♪ ♪ My kids are solidly outside, wind, rain or shine.

And I think that's one of the definite benefits.

♪ ♪ Here they are.

They're not just sitting around inside.

They are out helping us, whether we're doing the chickens, or they'll go off into the farm with their papa.

And that's, like, the main reasons we live here.

It's just being able to be outside.

♪ ♪ My oldest, Eli, who's six.

He is a free-spirited bundle of joy that just loves anything to do with helping and being outside.

I've got Olive, who's three, and she, again, is another free-spirited, definite Sark child.

I feel like they were both born for it.

She is into anything girly, but then also likes to roll around in the dirt in her tutus, so she also just loves Sark.

It fits my children perfectly.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: At the moment, the family are living in an annex off the farmhouse on Joe's parents' farm, but that's about to change.

For the last year, they've been building their own dream island home.

This is the house.

This is our new house.

This dust is unreal.

NARRATOR: But island dreams bring their own challenges, especially when you live on a very tiny island where the only vehicles allowed are tractors.

AMIE: Compared to Guernsey or the UK, the importing of the stuff you need, like many of the materials, that has to always come on the cargo boat.

Tractor or a trailer or, when we first moved over, to a big container on the back of a tractor.

So again, it just depends on what you're getting delivered, really.

I remember the scariest was our kitchen coming over on the Coupee, and our trusses for the, kind of, roof.

That was crazy.

NARRATOR: Amie has also had to abide by Sark's housing rules, which helps create two distinct property markets and encourage local housing stock to remain in the community.

AMIE: Our local market is a little bit cheaper than kind of the open market is.

To have a local market property, you have to have been living on the island for 15 years, which Joe has because he was born here.

So it's kind of to stop all of the kind of local market houses being taken up by anyone that comes kind of into the island and gives that little bit of separation.

We haven't really put a time on it.

We were half-hoping for my birthday, which is a couple of weeks.

But actually, I think we're looking more to the end of the summer just to make sure everything's perfect.

You're super helpful with the house, aren't you?

Yeah, well done.

[stirring cello music] NARRATOR: At the other end of the country are the UK's largest group of islands, the Hebrides.

They're made up of the Outer Hebrides, which are rugged and windswept, and the Inner Hebrides, which are closer to the mainland and are more lush and verdant, although they can be just as wonderfully wild.

The Inner Hebridean Island, Gometra, sits off the Isle of Mull's west coast.

Joined to its close neighbor, Ulva, by a bridge and a beach at low tide, it's just over two miles long and 1.8 miles wide, with a current population of seven.

"Gometra" likely means good man's island in Old Norse, and up until the 16th century was owned by monks who farmed it for grain to feed the monastery on the nearby island of Iona.

When the abbey was dissolved, Gometra was passed to the Duke of Argyll, and it has had various owners since then.

♪ ♪ Today it's owned by Roc, a writer, artist and environmental activist who saw the island as a perfect place to embrace low-impact living.

And he was right, as Gometra is decidedly off-grid.

ROC: Doesn't have a ferry.

It doesn't have a teacher or a doctor.

It's got wonderful meadows.

And then it's got very wild cliffs and wonderful wildlife.

NARRATOR: Roc's day is starting with a trip to his lush island garden, which supplies most of the fresh food he eats.

ROC: If we go into what was the polytunnel-- What's nice about living here is, although it's very dark in the winter, in the summer you get a very long day, so it's a bit supernatural the speed at which stuff grows here.

NARRATOR: It may grow fast, but island gardens do come with challenges.

ROC: We've had the polytunnel without any trouble for 10 or 15 years.

And then last winter there was a terrible storm and the top blew off.

And this is our herb garden.

There's mint, lots of mint that's escaped, lovage, which I just really love.

If I'm going to take some more.

I think with lovage, you either love it or you hate it, and I love it.

There's sage, which I used to drink sage tea lot, but I've actually moved on to things like nettle tea, and other-- other sorts of tea.

NARRATOR: Roc's garden not only provides nutrients, but there's also the odd, unexpected treat.

ROC: And then along here, you can see lots of rhubarb.

And so I'll probably come over the next day or two and just get rid of the bracken so that rhubarb can flourish.

And rhubarb's lovely for pudding, but it's also really good for making, erm, wine.

[soft music] NARRATOR: Roc moved to Gometra 30 years ago, searching for adventure and somewhere to fulfill his ambition to live more sustainably.

♪ ♪ ROC: I looked in a magazine called Country Life, which has advertisements for farms for sale, and went to look at a few places on the west coast of Scotland.

And Gometra stole my heart.

♪ ♪ Interestingly, I discovered that the island had been sold by my mother's first cousin around the time when I was born.

♪ ♪ Without me knowing it, I was actually coming back to a family place.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Achieving his dream island lifestyle hasn't been easy.

When he arrived, the farm had been empty for 10 years, and the house was flooded.

Undaunted, Roc worked hard to create a simpler life.

ROC: I was always off-grid here, but I used to be what I call guzzling off-grid, where I had loads of machines, and I'd bring in diesel to run the machines and petrol for the generator.

And it was always a headache because it would always be running out or the machine wouldn't work.

And now I've-- I've learned that I just don't need so many things.

NARRATOR: As Roc has grown into his new life, some parts of the island have stayed in the past.

Having said that, I'm not sure I can get in.

There.

It's maybe 10 years since I've actually been in here.

And around me are the remains of our electricity habit.

This used to be actually quite a scary place to be in, because it was so noisy when the generator was running, it was incredibly noisy.

When I got a solar panel, I just found it was just complete release because it's silent.

You don't have to go and buy petrol.

They're relatively cheap and they just go on forever, so it's amazing.

NARRATOR: Roc uses a portable solar panel to power a computer in one of the most well-situated home offices you will ever find.

Named the Sunset Hut, it's here he finds the inspiration to write and continue his environmental work.

This is my solar panel.

It's a bit dark now, so you're not going to get much off it.

But we'll see.

It'll be interesting.

♪ ♪ This is the wire.

And I have to plug it into my battery.

It's giving me six watts, which would be enough to run a LED bulb, which is nice.

But basically it just keeps pumping it into my battery.

And then, when I need power, I just take it out of there.

NARRATOR: Once his work is done, there's no battling traffic-- just a walk up Gometra's highest hill.

ROC: My ideal day includes climbing to the summit.

It's about 500 feet.

I spend a certain amount of my day writing, a certain amount of my day in meetings, and I find-- I just need the exercise, and to come up here is a perfect amount of exercise.

♪ ♪ As islands go in the Hebrides, it's probably one of the more remote ones.

It's quite a long way to anything.

It's hard to get here, but that probably explains some of its magic because there aren't lots of cars driving around.

♪ ♪ When you're up there, you can look around and you can see dozens of islands scattered across the-- the Hebrides.

♪ ♪ I've never measured, but I think it's probably about 100 miles between the furthest points you can see.

♪ ♪ It is really a wild landscape, and it's incredibly beautiful.

♪ ♪ What I like to say about Gometra is I don't own it because you don't own an island.

And if anything, it owns me.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: While most of us bustle around on the mainland, it seems the separation of water, however narrow, lends itself to contemplation and a more spiritual life.

Inis Rath, in County Fermanagh is an inland island in Lough Erne, just over 150 from the shore.

It's only a quarter of a mile long and wide with a population that fluctuates.

Right now it's home to eight permanent residents.

♪ ♪ ♪ Hare krishna ♪ ♪ Hare krishna ♪ NARRATOR: For the last 40 years, it's been a base for members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness-- informally known as the Hare Krishna movement.

♪ Hare hare ♪ NARRATOR: Originally from Dublin, Vidura is the temple manager.

Much of his day is spent in meditation.

VIDURA: The Krishnas came to Inis Rath in 1984.

This island inadvertently just came up for sale, and we happened to be passing by the estate agent when the notice went in the window.

♪ Hare krishna ♪ ♪ Krishna krishna ♪ VIDURA: The motivating factor in creating a community on the island gives us an opportunity to go deeper and deeper and deeper into our understanding and our philosophy of life.

Island life has been a unique experience for me.

♪ Hare krishna ♪ ♪ Hare krishna ♪ ♪ Krishna krishna hare hare ♪ NARRATOR: Worship is not new to the islands on Lough Erne.

In 400 to 1000 AD, it was a route between various island monasteries, and this Christian pilgrimage continued throughout the Middle Ages.

VIDURA: Ireland particularly has a very strong tradition of island life being a monastic setting.

So we have come back now and we've established another place of worship.

But there's only one God.

He's called by different names and we call him Krishna.

I've been a Hare Krishna now for 45 years, so it's a part of my life.

[bell ringing] NARRATOR: Life for the island's residents is a mixture of manual work and meditation.

Devotees also attend seven ceremonies a day, which start at 4:30 in the morning.

[lively music playing] ♪ Hare krishna ♪ ♪ Hare krishna ♪ ♪ Krishna krishna ♪ ♪ Hare hare ♪ [calm music] Inis Rath was originally owned by Lord Erne as a summer retreat, and its unique setting offers devotees like Vidura plenty of space for quiet reflection.

♪ ♪ VIDURA: The original people who built the house grew the trees around the island to protect it from the wind, protect it from the elements.

It's completely peaceful.

Very quiet.

You can come here, you can do your meditation, do your yoga, engage with nature, see the birds, see the wildlife, feed the deer.

♪ ♪ We have 40 head of deer.

♪ ♪ Deer are really good swimmers.

They came here of their own accord.

♪ ♪ We're here to give shelter not only to humans.

We're also here to give shelter to nature.

We try to preserve the trees as much as possible.

And also even the-- the birds, the bees, the insects, they're all a part of life.

All creatures great and small, as the saying goes.

♪ ♪ Being surrounded by water, it has a very calming effect on the mind.

♪ ♪ Living here, you don't hear any sounds.

♪ ♪ You just hear the wind.

You hear the birds chirping.

You hear-- life is going on.

It gives you a chance to be a little more introspective about your existence.

♪ ♪ It's a wonderful opportunity to engage with life.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Although many travel to islands searching for inner peace, there are a lucky few who are born into it and find a way to stay.

♪ ♪ 240 miles from Lough Erne to the west of Scotland is a string of islands known as the Outer Hebrides.

The tiny island of Berneray sits between Harris and North Uist.

It's just over two miles long and two and a half miles wide, with a population of around 140, which includes Eilidh, who is just shutting up her gift shop after a busy day, serving some of the thousands of tourists that visit the Outer Hebrides every year.

I usually do spend half the time sweeping up the beach, so everybody walks in with all their walking boots full.

So yeah.

♪ ♪ Coralbox is my gift shop that I started back in 2015.

I've always studied photography in school, and it was a hobby growing up.

So I first started selling mugs and coasters at tabletop sales.

It kind of just grew and grew, and people took an interest in photos.

And that's how I still can live and work here today, by having my gift shop.

[uplifting music] NARRATOR: Once work is over, Eilidh likes to head off in her van to explore her own island and beyond-- a lot easier now there's a causeway linking Berneray to the neighboring island of North Uist.

♪ ♪ EILIDH: I grew up here for the first seven or eight years of my life.

Without the causeway, it was just a little fairy boat.

♪ ♪ We were joined to North Uist by causeway in 1999.

It's probably been a very good thing with being able to travel over to Uist, and different work opportunities, and doctors and hospitals.

And for my gift shop, it brings a lot more people to the island that wouldn't have been here before, or traveling through.

So it's-- it's brought a lot of benefits to us.

NARRATOR: Eilidh is bucking a trend.

The population of the Outer Hebrides has dropped 4% in the last decade.

The biggest proportion of that decline is in children and young people.

Eilidh herself moved on to the mainland when she left school.

♪ ♪ EILIDH: I moved away to study photography, and to Aberdeen.

When you're young and 17, you just want a way to the city.

But when you get there, you-- you don't really know people and it's a bit busy, and everybody's in a rush.

Then there was three times as many people in my student halls alone than lived on the entire island.

It's good to have the experience of living in a city, but it's probably even better to be back.

NARRATOR: After a busy day in the shop, Eilidh likes to unwind in her own way-- although the after-work crowd here are a little different.

EILIDH: This is one of the spots I like to come to, to be by the sea and to see the seals.

They do breed on the nearby island of Chille off Berneray and there's thousands of them.

I think they're just having a wee break from being out at sea, but it's a lovely spot for them.

You can hear how peaceful it is.

NARRATOR: Parking up on East Beach, Eilidh's campervan offers a home from home and a chance to take in the views, whatever the weather.

This is my campervan that I converted.

We've done it out with a bed and fridge.

And it's got this table and chairs that turn around.

It's like a tiny home on wheels, I'd say.

And it was an old builder's van, so it was a bit old and rickety inside.

But we've now converted it into this, and you wouldn't recognize it today.

My dad and I started converting it.

It was meant to be a day camper with not much in it, and it turned into a fully blown campervan.

My dad is a joiner, so that was quite useful.

Well, this just turns around here and allows-- oopsie daisy-- more living space.

NARRATOR: About 50 miles from the mainland, East Beach is a great spot for beachcombing, or as Eilidh prefers to call it, looking for treasure, which she proudly exhibits in the shop to give it an authentic island feel.

EILIDH: For me to find things on the beach, it's just-- if it's colorful or if it's different, I just think treasure, as in maybe something that's lost or found again or special.

So yeah, you never know what you're going to find.

Here's a really nice piece.

It's got maybe a pattern and a coat of arms on it, so that's quite unusual.

We'll have to find out what-- what they match up to.

Maybe a whiskey bottle.

Or it could be anything, really.

A decorative bowl.

But until, we have a think about it, it could be anything.

I remember coming to the beach with my mom.

There's photographs of me on the beach as a baby and as a toddler, and all the way up to last week.

This patch is sometimes good for cowries.

My mom loves to collect cowrie shells.

So here we go.

Here are some cowries.

[soft music] There's a few here.

They're tiny little shells.

These little ones.

They were known to bring good luck to those who had them, or also used as currency along the way.

So it's quite good to find three today.

They're quite special wee things.

♪ ♪ There we are.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: With a choice of a treasure-filled East Beach and the vast expanse of West Beach's evening entertainment, it's not surprising Eilidh's made her life here.

♪ ♪ Three miles of white sand and turquoise seas so stunning that in 2009, a picture of it was mistakenly used by the Thai tourist board.

♪ ♪ EILIDH: When I'm out on my paddle board, it brings calm.

♪ ♪ On a clear, sunny day, it's-- it's just crystal-clear waters.

And I do think about just the peacefulness and how lucky I am to be living back here.

A nice small space in probably a very big world.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Many of us on the mainland dream of escaping to an island, living life on our own terms, cut off from distractions, free to indulge in our passions, surrounded by inspiration and beauty.

♪ ♪ On the tiny Hebridean island of Gometra, off the west coast of Scotland, one man is doing just that.

♪ ♪ Roc, a green campaigner and activist, has created an island home that has as little impact on the environment as possible.

This includes choosing to have no electricity or gas in his 19th-century farmhouse.

♪ ♪ ROC: The house was built in the 1860s, and in those days, there was no shortage of coal, so it's got a fireplace in every room.

These days, it's very different.

I don't have central heating, I don't have coal.

I've got a little wood burner that I light sometimes.

♪ ♪ It's hard to say what my favorite spot is.

I'd almost say it's my bed because I can lie in bed looking out the window and see dolphins or basking sharks.

NARRATOR: It wasn't until the late 1940s when much of the Highland and islands of Scotland got electricity.

Many isolated island communities had to wait even longer.

Gometra has never been connected to the grid.

In many ways, Roc is enjoying a way of life true to the island's history, with a hand-washing routine perfect for getting in the steps.

I'm just gonna wash my clothes.

It's going to be a bit cold.

Let's just see.

It's not too bad.

So I just tread-- tread them out in some soap and water.

I think they were quite dirty, judging by the color of the water already.

I had a washing machine until about 15 years ago.

And I've gradually learnt how to hand-wash.

I used to do it like that with my hand, and I had a washboard and a mangle and everything.

But actually, I find this way is better, to tread them out.

It's like a human washing machine.

It's probably gentler on them than an actual washing machine.

So yeah, I can recommend it.

NARRATOR: With the washing done, next on today's schedule is lunch.

Unusually, no friends or family are staying on the island this week, so Roc's free to have whatever he wants.

On today's menu is a flatbread satisfyingly made from scratch.

ROC: I fill this up with buckwheat, and I'm grinding it up so that I can make some flatbread.

What comes out of the bottom is sort of fairly coarsely ground buckwheat flour, which is wonderful for making bread and cakes and whatever.

Because there's no mains electricity here, I don't have a fridge or a freezer.

So I've had to learn how to live in a way that I suppose people lived before they were invented.

There are some really good shops on Mull, which sell lovely stuff, and the trouble is it takes an awful long time to get there, and so it's easier to-- to actually make stuff yourself.

I might put some salt in.

For most of our food, we send an email to the Dervaig stores on a Sunday, and it is dropped off at a friend's on Tuesday or Wednesday, and then someone will be coming this way and they will bring it.

Sometimes it takes a week or so.

So you have to order stuff that you know will be OK a week later.

I think I'm going to put some more salt in, and I'm going to try and find some caraway seeds or something to give it a bit more taste.

I've been vegetarian since I was about seven, and I've had long periods of being vegan, so a lot of the stuff I eat just does last.

It's not a problem.

It's like a very 20th century thing, fridge and freezer, and they're amazing.

But there was loads of wisdom about how to preserve things that we've lost to an extent.

So I try and learn from-- from our ancestors.

This stove runs on alcohol.

I got it because I wanted to stop using gas.

There are arguments that alcohol is even worse than gas, so it's tricky.

And probably the best way of cooking somewhere like this is to actually get more solar panels and cook with an induction hob.

Everything you do is harmful.

It's just a question of figuring out what's causing the least harm, I would say.

All over the place, there are people trying to figure out how to be comfortable and happy without harming other people-- or harming ourselves, for that matter.

It's looking OK.

I think I'm also happier without-- utility bills are like a sort of prison.

It's really important to me to be as free as possible.

And, yeah, it's a very cheap lifestyle, basically.

And I've moved towards an approach I call frugal off-grid, where rather than trying to replicate the on-grid lifestyle, you just learn to work around it.

And somehow, the more independent and resilient you are, the less utility bills you have and the happier your life is.

It's quite unusual, but it's sort of delicious.

You just want to eat more.

So I'm not complaining.

And it was very, very easy to make.

[soft music] NARRATOR: 160 miles away, on upper Lough Erne, to the west of Northern Ireland, is the tiny island of Inis Rath.

♪ ♪ It's home to a fluctuating population of religious devotees of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Without-- without a car, yeah.

WOMAN: No, no car today.

OK.

NARRATOR: Although they live only 160 meters from the mainland shore, the community has their own dedicated boat ferrying, visiting worshippers and vital supplies nearly every day.

It's something temple manager Vidura is very grateful for.

VIDURA: Pavana Gaura, he's our barge man.

Without Pavana Gaura, and without a barge, we simply wouldn't have an island.

PAVANA GAURA: I lived in Ireland two years and two months.

♪ ♪ I lived in the forest in Ukraine, and I've lived in the forest.

It's like-- like in Ukraine, but maybe a little different weather.

But, yeah, very good, good place.

VIDURA: Pavana Gaura came to the island about two and a half years ago.

The conflict in Ukraine was a motivating factor for his own safety and the safety of his family.

♪ ♪ He had been a devotee in Ukraine for many years.

But then, with the conflict in Ukraine, there was no way that he could stay and carry on with his service there.

NARRATOR: There are eight people that live and worship on the island full-time, and Pavana Gaura is not the only international devotee.

♪ ♪ Nanda Gram is from Latvia and in her time here she's transformed the island by creating its sacred centerpiece-- the Tulsi gardens, which she tends to every day.

NANDA GRAM: We just dig all winter.

Tried to make a drainage system and a little pond.

And after we decided to maybe grow a little bit more rose for the offering to God.

The garden has kind of become develop, and you want just more and more.

That's kind of what has happened here.

NARRATOR: Tulsi is a plant also known as holy basil.

Cultivated by Nanda Gram, it's one of the finest examples to be found in the Northern hemisphere.

The plant is believed to be a holy shrub, the earthly form of the goddess Tulsi Devi, Krishna's purest devotee.

Whether it's food or flowers, everything that Nanda Gram grows on the island has a holy purpose.

When you grow your own flower, it's just usually kind of more nicely.

You put a lot of love inside.

When you create something beautiful, that straightway reminds you about the nature, about the God, because he is who is-- create everything here.

Nature give you peace.

Nature allow you to meet yourself, found yourself, absorb yourself.

I feel myself, I'm in the right place and right time.

♪ ♪ VIDURA: Most of the world is endeavoring to go outside and satisfy their selves by external means, which can never be satisfied.

We're going inside and trying to satisfy ourselves internally.

♪ ♪ Since the turn of, you could say, the Industrial Revolution, life has gone down.

We're not connected with nature anymore.

We're not connected with ourselves.

We're not connected with each other.

♪ ♪ Island life gives us an opportunity to engage with the world, but at the same time, go deeper into our understanding and our philosophy of life.

♪ ♪ [uplifting music] NARRATOR: The Channel Islands sit not far from the French Normandy Coast.

Sark is one of the tiniest and most dramatic of these Channel Island communities, with a proud tradition of doing things their own way.

♪ ♪ Close to the larger island of Guernsey, its population is spread across Big Sark and a peninsula known as Little Sark.

This fiercely independent group of islanders have banned all motorized vehicles, apart from those used for farming, for which you need a special license.

Even the island's ambulance has been converted to be pulled by tractor.

♪ ♪ The island has just one doctor and one nurse.

In emergencies, they rely on a team of bike-riding volunteer community first responders.

One of these is Little Sark hairdresser Amie.

She's on call today, so she's taking a break from house building to head over to Big Sark and begin her shift.

AMIE: I go out on call once every 10 weeks and we assist with medical emergencies on the island.

So we'll be the first people there before the doctor gets there and the nurse.

NARRATOR: Handover is from Harry, another member of Sark's 10-strong team.

Hiya.

There you are.

Hello!

Right.

I haven't had time to replenish yet, so that's what we need to do.

AMIE: OK, perfect.

NARRATOR: With no previous medical experience, it's been a steep learning curve.

AMIE: At first I was like, oh, this would be simple.

It'd be like a first-aid course, but actually it wasn't.

There was a lot more in-depth stuff.

We need a new mask from today.

Was it the 15-liter?

HARRY: High flow, yeah.

AMIE: Yeah.

But once you get into the swing of things and using different language, it was really good.

And now I feel like I know so much more.

Have we got everything?

- Yeah, I think so.

Fab.

Ready to roll.

Good.

- Perfect.

AMIE: We can do anything from broken bones to cardiac arrests to strokes to general kind of cuts and bruises, falling off bikes.

That's quite a big one in the summer.

But in the summer it can be quite busy, especially when the tourists, like, kind of season picks back up.

NARRATOR: Sark's population doubles in high season.

Thankfully, Amie has some new kit to help her cope with the increased demand an island full of tourists brings.

AMIE: This bike is a electric bike.

It can carry quite heavy loads.

It's a belted bike, which is really good because we don't have to change gears as we're going uphill.

You literally pull the throttle back and forth.

So you can go quite fast.

[soft music] We actually had an older bike, which was gear-based, but we found that it kind of broke quite a lot.

So we upgraded it, and with the help of the community and lots of fundraising, to be able to buy this one.

♪ ♪ We do have an ambulance, but you can get places a lot faster with the bike.

They do a maximum of 16 to 17 miles an hour, so I know I can get from Little Sark to the other end of North in 15 minutes, which is incredible, really.

NARRATOR: Up until two years ago, Amie was driving a car on Guernsey.

Riding around tourist hotspots waiting for an emergency call is very different.

AMIE: Seeing the island by riding around on a bike and not being in a car makes you actually look.

♪ ♪ You are focused on what you're doing, but you also be able to sometimes just lift your head up and take a little look around and see what's going on around you and see the scenery.

There's definitely, like, an aspect of I'm opening my eyes a lot more to, like, the world around me.

♪ ♪ I love the community, this sense of going past people and saying, hello, and, like, greeting people in the morning and knowing that if something happened, then you could call anyone on Sark and they would help you out.

It's a real kind of perk to the island.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Luckily there were no emergencies today.

And back home on Little Sark, with a long summer's evening ahead, there's time for another of Amie's island passions.

Hi, girls.

I normally say hi to them because I feel like it's respectful.

NARRATOR: Amie checks the health of the bees once a week.

The honey is given to friends and family.

Her kids can't get enough of it.

AMIE: I read so much online about how pollination was down and the bees were declining and all those different things, and the more I looked into it, the more I thought, actually, I could really help here by trying to keep bees myself, and then got thrown in the deep end when there was a swarm of bees and they were, like, we need someone to have them.

And I was like, OK.

I'm really interested in the future of the island and its nature.

I want to be able to help kind of the land.

I want to be able to help kind of the plants, and it's definitely made me more conscious of it.

We've got a mix in this hive.

It's got a mix of capped brood and honey, all at the same time.

So because it was a wild hive, they've been doing what they can do to survive, because our queen's not laying in conjunction.

I don't know if she's old and maybe coming into the end of her time, or the pure fact that they went from being wild to in a hive might have disorientated them a little bit.

The bees are really important to Sark because they'll go around and they obviously will re-pollinate all of the different species of flowers from the wildflowers.

Also people's crop as well.

And bees can fly kind of a 3-mile radius around, so it's pretty much the whole of Sark.

I just enjoy hanging out with them.

Joe laughs and says, I spend all my time sitting with the bees rather than being inside with them and the kids.

[chuckles] I feel like bees are calming.

They make me feel calmer.

I just love my bees.

You know, I just love them so much.

I love so much about island life.

Sark is home.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: 515 miles north of Sark, the tiny island of Gometra has a very different climate.

♪ ♪ In fact, it's in one of the wettest parts of Scotland, which helps to maintain its lush appearance.

[inspiring music] And even though the mist is falling, Roc is carrying out his regular job of protecting his island from debris washing up from the world beyond.

♪ ♪ ROC: My role is to keep this island alive.

I am aware always that if I don't pick something up and if someone else doesn't, I'm going to be looking at it again next time I come by.

One gets tired of looking at the same bit of plastic every day.

I think the reason a lot washes up here is that we're the front line.

We're facing the open Atlantic.

So anything that goes in between here and Mexico has a high chance of ending up here.

It's never-ending.

Unless people in the outside world change their habits, we're going to go on receiving this stuff.

NARRATOR: Anything that Roc can't recycle is stored in the island's old schoolhouse, which sits near the beach.

ROC: There's no rubbish disposal service here, so there's nothing we can do with it, basically.

I don't like burning it because it releases harmful chemicals into the atmosphere.

A lot of the plastics produced end up in the oceans.

It's completely disrupting the marine food chain, and we're depending on that food chain for our oxygen and carbon sequestration and all sorts of things.

What's really bad is the stuff you can't see.

[emotional music] Microplastics.

♪ ♪ The zooplankton, which are the animal plankton, eat the microplastics because they think it's food, and then they die.

And they are the base of the food chain.

So if there's no zooplankton, there's nothing else.

And that's all happening quite fast.

NARRATOR: Whilst Roc takes pride in protecting his island from pollution, he knows there's more to do.

His journey into climate activism began at early Extinction Rebellion protests, when he helped to bring London's traffic to a standstill.

♪ ♪ Today, he's able to continue his campaigning from his base in Gometra, as part of an international group of artists and writers called Ocean Rebellion, who concentrate on issues affecting the sea.

♪ ♪ So this is the Sunset Hut.

It was built to watch the sunsets from.

Ended up turning into a sort of-- I suppose, a cyber cafe.

A few years ago, they put a mobile mast on the island of Coll, which is just over there, which meant we had mobile reception here.

Mixed blessing in a way, but I think on balance, it's been really helpful to me.

I'd prefer it not to reach my house, but that shed, it's very much changed the way we live here, and it's made us more outward looking.

It's an incredible place.

And I often show people when I'm on a Zoom call to point it around, and I sometimes pretend there's a huge warren of underground spaces behind from which one can do a sort of "Doctor No" style transformation of society.

And yeah, I sometimes call myself Doctor Yes.

[uplifting music] The island has become a part of my identity in a way.

♪ ♪ I find it very difficult to leave here if I have a, say, face-to-face meeting in the south that I have to go to.

I could very easily never leave.

And maybe one day that'll happen.

[whimsical, uplifting music] ♪ ♪