CALDEY Island is set to be the star of its own BBC Wales television programme.

The island is the subject of the first programme in the new series Magic Islands, presented by Wales Today newsreader Jamie Owen, which starts on BBC Two Wales and the digital channel BBC 2W on Thursday, November 7.

Caldey is familiar to Jamie from childhood visits from his home in Pembroke Dock.

"We went there lots when I was a boy and there was always something new to see. It was fascinating to talk to one of the monks who has left his 'normal' life behind. He was about my own age, on a hot summer's day, Jubilee weekend, with people dressed up in '50s gear and one of the World Cup games going on."

Jamie hops from island to island aboard a 100-year-old pilot cutter. Sailing in freezing weather with Force 7 winds and lashing rain was not always a picnic for the self-confessed 'fair-weather' sailor, and trouble started on the very first day.

"Originally, we were going to start the series on Lundy," recalls Jamie. "Immediately we had to turn back because of bad weather, and wait. Stuck in port you realise how much you are at the mercy of the weather. In fact, we were unable to continue with our original plans and went along the South Wales coast to Caldey instead."

Jamie's journey takes him from Caldey to Skomer, Ramsey, Bardsey, Anglesey, then back to Lundy.

"In fact it mirrored the original voyages of the boat, The Mascot, which used to guide ships into the ports of Liverpool, Newport, Barry, Cardiff and Swansea. And we sailed it just as the sailors of old would have done - the anchor and the sails had to be raised by hand. It's hardly glamorous TV and there's definitely a fine line between enjoyment, exhilaration and fear. And I have the ripped-apart hands to show for it - and a loss of a stone in weight.

"Doing something like this makes you realise that there is another world of Wales. You think you know a country pretty well, but then you find that there are communities and people in Wales who live a totally different life to yours and whose reference points are so different.

"I also think it makes a refreshing change from lots of programmes on television which encourage you to change - your living room, your garden, your make-up, your clothes, your partner. It's as if you're told that what you are isn't good enough. This programme celebrates what we've got. It illustrates the way we are, not what we could be.

"And you get such a different perspective from the water. In this age of speed, of railways and motorways, not many of us travel in this slower way. We've lost the ability to stop and look. And the islands themselves are so different. They have different histories, communities (or not, in the case of some), different farming, fishing, sailing, geography."

Jamie has written about his visits to Caldey - and the other islands - in a book, Magic Islands (Gomer Press, £9.95), published to coincide with the programme, and including photographs of happy childhood visits and memories.

It's said that sailing around Wales is one of the most challenging things anyone can do and Jamie certainly endorses that statement. There were moments of pure joy, like sailing from Milford Haven to Lundy under scorching sun and a cloudless sky, sunbathing on deck and looking up at the cream sails against the deep blue of the sky.

"You could have been in the Caribbean or Mediterranean," says Jamie. "It was sailing at its best."

This contrasted with battling against the elements near Strumble Head off the Pembrokeshire coast watching other boats being rescued in a Force 7 gale.

"In 14 days of sailing around the coast, 10 of them were in poor weather - and it was our summertime," says Jamie.