Former Monmouth Comprehensive School pupil Dr Lucy Blue can currently be seen on BBC 2's fascinating new eight part series, Oceans.

Lucy, whose family live in the Mitchel Troy/Trellech, area is one of the four co-presenters making up the Oceans dive team.

As a specialist in maritime archaeology, Lucy has excavated widely in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Indian Ocean and is currently the Director of the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton,

Oceans was filmed over one year, only allowing a few weeks for each film trip, a tight schedule in film terms. Changeable weather, unpredictable nature and strong sea currents presented daily challenges for the team, including a close encounter with a polar bear.

In the coming weeks, viewers will see the team, led by explorer Paul Rose, venture into some of the planet's most challenging environments and with the help of scientists and dive teams, descend beneath frozen Arctic ice-sheets, dive into mysterious black holes in the Bahamas and plunge into the dark water with the fearsome Humboldt squid.

Anyone tuning into BBC4 Woman's Hour last week, will have heard Lucy talking about what she learnt from making the series.

"What's really interested me is going to places entirely different - this experience has really engaged me and made me look at landscapes and seascapes in a different perspective," she said.

"I want to enthuse people with a love of the sea - I want them to find it exciting; I want them to explore the sea in the way I have loved doing that, " Lucy added.