Hamish Macdonald is going to need his winter woollies as he steps up to host Southern Ocean Live for ABC

Bobbing around in the freezing Southern Ocean in the depths of winter isn’t something most of us would like to be doing right about now. So spare a thought for the intrepid reporters taking part in the ABC’s ambitious Southern Ocean Live TV broadcast next Tuesday — they’ll be on standby to chat to audiences from deep in the ocean as host Hamish MacDonald crosses to them during the live broadcast. We’re turning blue just thinking about it. “We are going to be asking some of our deep sea reporters to be deep in the Southern Ocean, for the duration of this live broadcast,” says Macdonald, who will be officiating the telecast from the relative comfort of “Ocean HQ” on Victoria’s Phillip Island. He and fellow host Dr Ann Jones will be poised to bring us the live Phillip Island Penguin Parade. “They’ll be coming to us live and demonstrating to us what they are seeing in front of them as we go to air on Tuesday night,” Macdonald adds. “In terms of television highwire acts, this is very much one of them — maybe a better analogy is a television free dive. “It is high risk and high stakes.” And given they’re filming on the night of the winter solstice, likely to be very, very cold. “It will be cold,” Macdonald agrees. “Luckily, I’ll have the thermals and the beanie and all the rest of it on, and to be honest, I’ll be the warmest person on air that night, because half of the team will literally be underwater, so I don’t think I am in any place to complain about the temperature.” Southern Ocean Live is the second ocean-based live special to air on ABC — the network did something similar a few years ago when they brought us Reef Live, which covered the spawning event on the Great Barrier Reef. Macdonald was across that one, too. “It was a bit of an experiment to try and bring that to television life,” he explains. “Obviously there are a lot of natural history documentaries as a genre, but I think Karina Holden and the team (at Northern Pictures) that made Reef Live with the ABC were being very, very ambitious in trying to get that to air. It was quite an experience being part of that.” Thankfully they succeeded, and are poised to do it all again with their Southern Ocean special. “We’re attempting to showcase the Southern Ocean coming to life in the depths of winter,” Macdonald explains. “Everything you see above ground during winter, with the snow falling on the mountains, and the changes in the trees and the landscapes, that’s only part of the story — there is also this transformation that takes place under the sea in the winter months as well.” It’s going to be magical to see it up close. Across 90 minutes of broadcast, audiences are also treated to a series of pre-recorded packages, two of which were shot here in WA. David Riggs, who has been studying and observing orcas in Bremer Bay for more than a decade, will take audiences to the front line as a pack of killer whales hunt to bring down a giant blue whale. We’ll also spend time with abalone diver and conservationist Marc Payne, who takes us deep below the surface in his propeller-driven, steel-framed diving craft. Last year, Macdonald was also able to get in on the act, filming whales for one of the show’s video packages off the coast of New South Wales. “I was really, really lucky during the lockdown last year to be given a licence to leave and head out onto the Southern Ocean, to film with the whales,” he explains. “We ended up inside an incredibly rare mega-pod of whales . . . “To be honest, it was a pretty emotional experience — some of the really seasoned whale watchers that were part of this were in tears, frankly. “It was quite the experience.” The live broadcast occurs during the mass migration of spider crabs into Port Phillip Bay, Victoria. It also coincides with the biggest gathering of courting giant cuttlefish in Spencer Gulf, South Australia. Filmmakers are hoping to capture all of that for us to see. “It has been a huge effort, putting this show together,” Macdonald says. “I am really excited that we are going to be able to bring this to air, live on Tuesday night.”