In the first episode of the series, CCTV captures the moment two boys are rescued from a rising tide under Blackpool Central pier. After being swept into the sea when a wave catches them unawares, they are eventually heard by a security guard from the pier who raises the alarm. One quick-thinking stranger, spending the day on the beach with his family, decides to try to beat the waves and risks his own life to wade in and bring both boys out. In the Shetland Isles a fisherman Martin Garrick goes on his rowing boat to check his lobster pots off the coast of Sandness - only to find a seal caught in the line and being strangled to death by a rope around its neck.