Inside Essex’s Oyster Island | Mersea Island

Añadido: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]They keep you busy, do they?

[00:00:01]>> Yeah, >> I purposely came while it wasn't high tide. I didn't want to get stuck at the street. Here we got the company shed.

[00:00:08]Let's have a look inside, shall we? We got a coffee place here. Coffee hatch.

[00:00:14]>> Hello. How are you?

[00:00:15]>> That was lovely. This is gorgeous.

[00:00:17]>> It's not polluted, but there's a big risk of pollution.

[00:00:21]>> Right.

[00:00:21]>> This is what Mazy Beach is well known for. Beach huts. Brightly colored beach huts.

[00:00:31]So, I've come to Mercy Island today.

[00:00:34]Wouldn't believe it, but twice a day this road gets covered by water.

[00:00:38]Actually creates the island. Let's go and have a look, shall we? See what we can find.

[00:00:50]All right, this is the West Mury pontoon.

[00:00:54]just parked up for one hour for free, which is quite nice.

[00:01:03]You have to go to the ticket machine and just press the button twice. It gives you a ticket for free for 1 hour. I said to the guy near me, "What stops me coming back in 1 hour?" Get another free ticket for 1 hour.

[00:01:16]Sadly, the tide's out.

[00:01:25]Anyway, this is West Mazi. It's beautiful, isn't it?

[00:01:45]>> This is where the famous Where's the oysters come from?

[00:01:50]See some in little baskets just over there.

[00:02:02]Boat access only.

[00:02:06]Interesting.

[00:02:11]The dink is tied up here.

[00:02:14]Got these dingies all tied up here. All ready to go.

[00:02:39]Amazing.

[00:02:43]>> It's like some kind of ferry.

[00:02:48]>> Morning.

[00:02:49]>> Morning.

[00:02:50]>> How are you guys today?

[00:02:51]>> All right.

[00:02:52]>> Are you some kind of ferry or?

[00:02:54]>> Uh, yeah. You've got launch.

[00:02:56]>> Oh, okay.

[00:02:57]>> They keep you busy today.

[00:02:59]>> Yeah.

[00:03:01]>> I purposely came. Well, it wasn't the high tide. I didn't want to get stuck at the street.

[00:03:04]>> Oh, right. It's not high enough today to get stuck in the >> street. That's only like springs, isn't it? or something. Yeah.

[00:03:09]>> Spring.

[00:03:12]>> Cool. Have a great day. Yeah.

[00:03:14]>> I do.

[00:03:17]>> So, you can see all the barnacles barnacles that hang on this.

[00:03:31]Looking back to the shore. It's lovely, isn't it?

[00:03:37]And I head back up now and see what see what else we can find.

[00:03:43]Looks like there's a char here. Look.

[00:03:47]Antifoul paint brushes, paints, thinners, build cleaner, all sorts of things over there.

[00:04:05]Got Peter Clark's Boatyard Limited here.

[00:04:14]They got a place called Dolphin Sales Incorporated.

[00:04:18]I assume you can buy sales there and have sales repaired.

[00:04:26]On the other side, we've got a place called the company shed. Let's have a look inside, shall we?

[00:04:34]Oh, it looks a bit early for service.

[00:04:37]>> Sure. I could come back later and get an ice maybe.

[00:04:40]>> Lovely, isn't it?

[00:04:47]We got a coffee place here. Coffee hatch.

[00:04:51]>> Hello. How are you? Good, >> thank you.

[00:04:53]>> Um, I don't know. I'd have a look on the menu.

[00:04:56]>> I tell you what, I'd really love a flat white, please.

[00:04:59]>> Yeah, that would be perfect.

[00:05:08]How long have you been here for?

[00:05:10]>> Uh about 8 weeks now.

[00:05:11]>> Oh wow.

[00:05:12]>> Seven and a half.

[00:05:13]>> Yeah. How's it going?

[00:05:14]>> Yeah, really good. Busy busy on the weekends.

[00:05:17]>> Wow. I love the coffee machine.

[00:05:20]>> Enjoy.

[00:05:37]went to >> that was quite a nice thing to do.

[00:06:01]Yeah, >> that is fantastic. Thank you. What's your name?

[00:06:10]>> Rufus.

[00:06:11]>> Rufus. Nice to have met you.

[00:06:17]Right, that was lovely. This is gorgeous.

[00:06:23]Make sure you stop there if you come down to Bazi. This is the public jetty here.

[00:06:30]These boats at this one all covered in green stuff.

[00:06:34]Looks like it's been on its side.

[00:06:41]This one looks like it's been on its side for a while.

[00:06:45]possibly sunk.

[00:06:48]This one here, it's like a very, very old ply built boat.

[00:07:00]Yep. That's made of plywood.

[00:07:11]Other boats in here.

[00:07:13]This one's nice looking sailboat.

[00:07:17]Underwater profile on that one.

[00:07:18]Beautiful.

[00:07:25]This digger. Look at that. See seen much better days, hasn't it?

[00:07:39]We got Richard Howard's oysters. Seventh and eighth generation oyster man.

[00:07:47]Anyone around?

[00:07:49]Hello there.

[00:07:50]>> Hi.

[00:07:51]>> Hi. How are you?

[00:07:52]>> Yeah, I'm all right. How are you?

[00:07:54]>> Yeah, not too bad, thank you. I'm just on the island just today just recording a video about um well, the island. Um a big part of the island is, you know, oysters and stuff.

[00:08:01]>> Yeah. Yeah, a big part.

[00:08:02]>> So, just wonder if you fancy telling us about oysters.

[00:08:06]>> Yeah, literally everything I do.

[00:08:09]Um, well, I mean, oysters were discovered here about 2,000 years ago by the Romans. And when the Romans landed here >> and they made culture to the first capital, they built a road from Mury Island to connect to >> and um they found oysters and they loved them. So, they started sailing them back to Italy.

[00:08:28]>> Yeah.

[00:08:28]>> And um it's rumored they said that the Romans reckon the only good thing to come out of Britain were oysters.

[00:08:36]>> Okay. Um and then in the 1700s my family started um harvesting.

[00:08:42]>> Wow. It's like I said, wow.

[00:08:43]>> Yeah. Yeah. So I'm generation eight.

[00:08:45]>> Oh wow.

[00:08:46]>> Or the how family have been growing oysters and um yeah started growing back then in 1700s. Um all the creeks out here.

[00:08:53]>> Yeah.

[00:08:54]>> Were turned into oyster beds.

[00:08:55]>> Yeah.

[00:08:56]>> Where we were growing oysters just freely scattered on the on the seabed and that those beds in the creeks were leased off the Lord of the Mana.

[00:09:04]>> Oh wow. um started growing those oysters and then sailing them up into Billingsgate Market mainly and into the center of London where it was food of the poor and literally hundreds of millions of oysters a year were going into London to feed the poor.

[00:09:18]>> Wow, that's fantastic.

[00:09:18]>> And my family were part of that.

[00:09:20]>> Oh wow.

[00:09:20]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:21]>> Okay. Could you tell me a little bit about I read somewhere recently or a while back actually about the the pollution in the river potentially there might be you know the river was polluted some way in some way. It's not polluted, but there's a big risk of pollution.

[00:09:33]Right.

[00:09:34]>> Um, with what what water companies have been doing all over the UK where they've been dumping sewage, they haven't been treating it properly.

[00:09:39]>> Right.

[00:09:40]>> Here in Murzy, um, the one water works here has actually there's a lot of campaign by the oyster industry to make sure they put UV purification on the outfall. Okay. Back in the ' 90s, right?

[00:09:52]>> So that cleaned it right up. So, and treated sewage was then going through UV before it then was out. So the UV would be a belt and braces thing after they've tried to clean it.

[00:10:01]>> Yeah. Then the UV kills any harmful bacteria >> um that could be in the in the outflow.

[00:10:06]>> Oh wow.

[00:10:06]>> So there's a lot of work and I worked with some people the good law project and took the government to court in 2023 to the high court.

[00:10:13]>> Wow.

[00:10:14]>> Um to try and force the government to tighten up the regulations and come down harder on water companies for when they do essentially break the law sewage untreated. Um, unfortunately with all these things, um, it it got it got attention, it got publicity, the government promised they'd do more.

[00:10:31]Yeah.

[00:10:31]>> But the court couldn't actually force them to do much because technically within the framework of the law, they weren't the government wasn't breaking the law.

[00:10:38]>> Wow.

[00:10:38]>> So, it's an ongoing battle um trying to raise awareness that Murzy here, our oysters are good, they're safe, the water quality is amazing, but there's always that risk in the future if water companies aren't held to account. What the campaign of UK shellfish industry because we're an island nation and we produce amazing oysters all over the UK >> is protecting those waterways.

[00:11:01]>> They're highly preferred in London restaurants as well, aren't they?

[00:11:03]>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean the majority of everything I sell goes into London. So we >> got Sandfire. Do you sell Sandfire there or >> often? It's seasonal here. A very short season. We sometimes >> we sometimes collect it, harvest it and send it into London. But that's a separate thing. But the oysters, I mean, we as a company, I mean, we alone sell a million oysters a year.

[00:11:23]>> Wow.

[00:11:23]>> All over the UK. Um, and I'd say 60% of that goes into London.

[00:11:28]>> That's fantastic, isn't it?

[00:11:29]>> Yeah. A lot of high-end restaurants, Billingsgate Market, and we have a stall at Burough Market as well, where we're open six days a week selling to the public.

[00:11:36]>> Oh, wow. Fantastic. So, that's Burough Market in London.

[00:11:38]>> Yeah. Yeah. On London Bridge. Yeah.

[00:11:39]>> Wow. So, anyone listening, if you want to get some oysters from Mury, go down to London Bridge. Burough Market.

[00:11:44]>> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:11:44]>> What days a day?

[00:11:45]>> Uh, we're open six days a week. Six days a week. Wow. So you get your way to six days a week. I suppose it's Sunday off.

[00:11:49]Is it?

[00:11:50]>> No, Monday off.

[00:11:50]>> Monday off. Okay.

[00:11:51]>> Sunday is one of our busiest days. Yeah.

[00:11:53]>> Perfect.

[00:11:54]>> Sorry. What's your name?

[00:11:54]>> Tom. Tom Howard.

[00:11:56]>> Lovely to have met you, Tom.

[00:11:57]>> So Richard Haroy says, "Richard was my father who died in uh 2023."

[00:12:01]>> Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.

[00:12:02]>> Like I say, we're generation eight now.

[00:12:04]Wow.

[00:12:05]>> Doing this. So that makes us the oldest oyster farming family in the world.

[00:12:09]>> Fantastic.

[00:12:09]>> So it's um quite a legacy to carry on.

[00:12:12]>> Yeah. Thank you so much, Tom, for the chat.

[00:12:14]>> No worries.

[00:12:14]>> And um we'll see you again. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:16]Thank you. Nice to meet you.

[00:12:17]>> So, this is the beach of shells. Look, this is fantastic here.

[00:12:26]>> Oh, this beach is literally just oyster shells.

[00:12:36]Thousands and thousands of oyster shells. Like tiny little flies.

[00:12:45]Look at that.

[00:12:51]There's even more.

[00:12:53]Thousands out there as well. I might take one. Oh, should I take one for a souvenir?

[00:13:02]Could use it as a soap dish, couldn't I?

[00:13:05]That one.

[00:13:08]Let's take that one. That's nice.

[00:13:12]Could use that as a soap dish.

[00:13:19]It's a nice old boat, isn't it?

[00:13:24]This one's seen better days as well.

[00:13:27]Wow, look, it's got holes in it.

[00:13:30]What's inside there?

[00:13:35]Nothing much.

[00:13:42]She got twin propellers.

[00:13:44]And she needs a lot of planking by the look of it.

[00:13:53]>> That's a telescope there.

[00:13:57]Discover Mazi St. Peter's World Meadow of Special Scientific Interest.

[00:14:06]All the house boats over there.

[00:14:11]This little stream going off.

[00:14:17]Danger. Deep water. Sudden drop. Strong currents.

[00:14:27]That's the famous Mazy house boats over there.

[00:14:32]All right, we're just on our way down to a beach called Monkey Beach.

[00:14:38]See what we can find down here, shall we?

[00:14:58]Hello there.

[00:14:59]>> Hello.

[00:15:05]>> Beautiful day.

[00:15:08]Here's a famous house boats on Mazy Island.

[00:15:19]There's quite a few.

[00:15:22]See with the tide out exposed the hull.

[00:15:27]This one's beautiful. Look at that. It's got a counter a counter stern. That bit there is called a counter.

[00:15:34]I reckon that was a yacht. A racing yacht or something. See if we can see the front.

[00:15:43]Can just get to the edge of this mud.

[00:15:47]See the bow. Yeah, I reckon she was a sailor.

[00:15:51]Definitely the lines of her. Beautiful.

[00:15:56]Like a Dutch style boat over there.

[00:15:59]Another Dutch boat.

[00:16:01]It's beautiful here.

[00:16:06]Usually this be under water completely.

[00:16:10]Oh up to this line anyway here line.

[00:16:16]All the crabs wandering around.

[00:16:26]I have to come back at high tide one day.

[00:16:31]Right. I'm going to work my way back through this labyrinth of paths.

[00:16:36]Back to the road. See what else we can find.

[00:16:48]All right, we made it.

[00:16:51]This is another part of the beach further down.

[00:16:57]Beach huts for sale.

[00:16:59]There you go. You can buy a beach hut.

[00:17:02]Ah.

[00:17:05]20-year license.

[00:17:08]Wow. 20% off food and drink of owners priority rewards. Guaranteed parking spot. Called the sales office. Look at that. What a lovely place to add a beach hut.

[00:17:21]My dear, I think they've gone up a bit since I used to look at beach huts for sale.

[00:17:32]So, it looks like I found myself a little peninsula here. Look.

[00:17:39]So, you've got these little squiggly bits of mud on the surface.

[00:17:44]And if you look around, you can see someone's been digging up those little squiggly bits.

[00:17:53]So, they've been digging for bait for fishing, little tiny worms, and the little squiggly bits on the top of the castings as it as it buries down.

[00:18:02]As it burrows down, it creates little castings on the surface.

[00:18:09]And then if you dig, if you keep digging, in theory, you're supposed to come across a worm. And that's what people have done. So, you can see they've been quite active this morning here.

[00:18:23]So this is what Mazy Beach is well known for. Beach huts. Brightly colored beach huts.

[00:18:34]As you saw before, you can buy one. So lovely here. The sound of the waves. The little Not actually waves, are they?

[00:18:41]They're tiny waves.

[00:18:45]I love this sound. This sound could never get boring.

[00:18:56]Wow. So, thanks for coming to Mury with me today. It's been really great.

[00:19:03]I've really enjoyed my trip here. I haven't been here for a few years, probably since 2019, probably.

[00:19:10]It's beautiful. I'd highly recommend anyone who's never been to Mury Island to come and check it out. There's so much more I haven't showed you today, but thanks for watching. Watch one of these videos up here, please. Please subscribe and I'll love you forever.

[00:19:26]Thank you.