My coast: Monty Halls

'I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a marine biologist and I wasn't fascinated by fish. My parents say that, when I was tiny, I'd waddle over to the edge of the water, wade in and spend hours turning over stones in the shallows to see what was underneath.

'The sea has loomed large in my life. My dad was in the RAF, so I grew up in Padstow in Cornwall, and then we were posted to Malta for three years, where I spent pretty much every day in the sea. It's probably where the seed was sown for my love of diving.

'I'm currently house hunting on the South Coast of Devon around Dartmouth. But I've narrowed down the search - I'm not looking at any houses where you can't smell the sea! I was based in Dartmouth when I was in the marines and always felt very at home there.

'If I'm keen on waves and rockpools, my dog Reuben takes it to another level. When he gets a whiff of sea spray through the car window, he loses his mind. He's unbearable for the first day - completely hyper, in and out of the surf, and bouncing around on the sand. So he'll be pleased about the move.

'I've just come back from shooting another great another Great Escape series for the BBC, this time on the Uists in the Outer Hebrides. There was a beach about five minutes away from the cottage where I was staying that was just about as close to perfection as you can get. Two miles of white sand in a perfect crescent; crisp, cold Atlantic water and a lovely surf break. It's called Sollas beach, and three to four times a week I would run on it. I spotted otters, oystercatchers, dolphins and countless seals, but in the six months I was there, I saw maybe six or seven people on the beach. Where else in Europe could you run along miles and miles of sugar-white sand and not see another person? I went fishing for sea trout with a local guy and, as we pulled up to this vast acreage of sand, he muttered, "Aye, the beach is a bit crowded today." There were three people right in the distance!

'Of course, there's a downside to the isolation - young people are leaving as there's no work for them. One local chap said they couldn't even raise a shinty team this year because there aren't enough youngsters. They've been playing shinty [similar to hockey or hurling] for 150 years in that community. I'm hoping the new series encourages people to visit the Hebrides, as the economy needs the money that the tourists bring.

'Any diver will tell you, on the right day, the diving off the British coast is as good as you get anywhere. You've got ocean giants, like basking sharks, seen regularly off the Pembrokeshire coast and the Isle of Man; 21 species of shark; healthy populations of dolphins, and the Outer Hebrides is the best place in Europe to see whales.

'It's scandolous that we haven't protected more of our marine environment. But at last it's an issue that's being addressed with the Marine Bill. It's a step in the right direction, but it's just a first step. We've got it all here and it's about time we stopped writing it off.'

Monty Halls' Great Hebridean Escape is now on BBC2. Plan your next Hebridean Escape and download a special itinerary for the Uists by going to visitscotland.com/perfect.