The Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean is one of the least-spoilt areas of marine wildlife on earth, with extensive coral reef habitats. It could become one of the worlds foremost marine reserves, if we have the will to enact protection, as through an accident of history it is under British jurisdiction. Our chairman, Ron Crosby, has a long history of involvement with the Chagos islands, having taken part in the early marine life survey work. The Chagos islands have been subject of a couple of talks to the group in recent years, but if you missed these, there is plenty of information online through the link below:

Protect Chagos .org

This address also has an online petition to lobby for protection – the consultation period ends on 12th February 2010, so please take a look soon!

MCS AGM report. The National AGM came north to Preston this year, just a few days after the long-awaited completion of the Marine and Coastal Access Act. This finally opens up the possibility of statutory marine reserves around the UK, so there was considerable satisaction, though there is still a long way to go to implement effective protection for habitats and species ‘on the ground’.

Something that came from the meeting quite strongly was the feeling that we need to broaden our constituency. We need to be able to show that the state of the seas around us is of concern to more than just a few eco-warriors!

Recently in-store polling work by the Co-Op has shown that you do want to look after marine wildlife. Clearly the state of our seas effects everyone living in an island nation! This collaboration with the Co-Op is now coming together in the ‘Your Sear Your Voice’ campaign. This gives you the opportunity to support the establishment of marine reserves in your area. (See below for further details).

AGM was on 17th November 2009 at the Foster Building, UCLAN.

The ‘common’ skate has been in serious trouble for some time, due entirely to over fishing. In 2008 ICES recomended that there should be no more target fishing, and that by-catch needed to be limited. Unfortunately, it now looks as though what fisheries statistics were labelling as the ‘common’ skate is in fact two species, with distinct morphologies and life histories. This change in classification means that we have two endangered species. One of these species (Dipturus cf. intermedia) is now thought to be in immediate risk of extinction.

It is sad that we know so little about our seas, and yet do them so much damage.

Ref: Iglésias S.P., Toulhoat L., Sellos D.Y. Taxonomic confusion and market mislabelling of threatened skates: important consequences for their conservation status. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, (in press) via Science Daily

More information: UK biodiversity Action Plan on the Common Skate

Is there something you can do? – The ‘Your Seas Your Voice’ programme, sponsored by the Co-Op, allows you to lend support to proposed marine reserves around the UK coasts. Reserves with strong no-take policies are the only way that many species, like the common skate, will survive. Showing you care about the seas around us is the only way we will get the political action necessary to offer them this protection:

Your Seas Your Voice

We had an interesting walk today around Walney, with some great weather and light. Thanks Gordon for organising.

I couldn’t help but notice how much plastic rubbish there was though, hardly a meter without any. I didn’t think I was that old, but I can remember as a child when on a trip to the beach you didn’t see tons of plastic. In fact, like most children, I was a real beachcomber, picking up shells, dead crabs, rocks, bits of wood etc. I would have noticed.

Anyway, for anyone interested, I’ve put some pictures on my web pages here.

Photographer Chris Jordan has published a heart-breaking series of photos of the effects of litter on baby Albatross.  On the tiny Midway Atoll in the middle of the North Pacific, tens of thousands of Albatross chicks die yearly of toxicity and starvation because their parents feed them plastic, thinking it’s food.

See the photos here

We arrived at Glen Luce through torrential rain on the Friday night, at start of the August Bank Holiday. Saturday, thankfully, was a stark contrast, with just a couple of showers, otherwise warm and sunny. The strong winds and heavy rain of the previous day had, however, done its damage to underwater conditions around the coast. The most sheltered spot, at Lady Bay, looked promising, with no swell, blue skies and water – but rubbish underwater visibility. At least we could eat our sandwiches and dry off our kit in the sun afterwards! The morning was followed with excursions to Stranraer and Port Logan, there being little prospect of any diving that day…

The weather got wetter overnight, and Sunday was quite grey, with light drizzle in the morning. We first tried to get access to Drumbreddan Bay, but the track (and public footpath) were submerged under a deep spill of slurry, which looked to have been festering for some time. Consequently we made our way down to Ardwell Bay. Here there was a deep swell, which would have made diving quite difficult in shallow water close to the rocks. We decided to chance snorkelling, which was a very enjoyable experience, the movement of the weed in the swell makes you appreciate some of the mechanical stresses seaweed (and shore organisms in general) have to survive. While we were in very shallow water, we did spot some mearl (unexpected in less than 2m depth), wrasse, and plenty of weed!

After the snorkel the weather closed in, stopping any further hopes of diving that day, so we made our way down to the tea house on the Mull of Galloway. Here the weather was quite atmospheric, with, for once, visibility above the water challenging what we had experienced below it!

Still, despite the weather (which again was very soggy for our drive home on Monday), we all enjoyed the weekend – good company, good food, and good accommodation (thanks to White Cairn Caravan Site at Glen Luce). Thanks to Jo for organising the trip!

Above right: Photo montage from top to bottom: Lady Bay on Saturday – sheltered but poor (underwater) visibility. Corsewall Point was too exposed to dive, with large waves and a deep swell. On Sunday the vis had cleared to >1m, so we were able to snorkel at Ardwell Bay (photo of Fucus sp.), though the swell was still strong. By early afternoon the cloud had closed in, and visibility (above water) was pretty poor (photo of the Mull of Galloway lighthouse)…

Barry

We were enticed into the calm, sheltered blue waters of Lady Bay (Mull of Galloway) on Saturday (29th September 2009), only to find that conditions were pretty much un-diveable, with lots of suspended silt giving a visibility of about 10cm! You could see which way was up, and that was about it…

Having got wet, however, I decided to try and get some samples for microscopy, and got a rather nice sample of sea mat on a laminarian. Sea mat is an ectoproct, a colonial animal that is commonly found forming white reflective sheets on kelp fronds, look closer and you’ll see that the sheet is formed of lots of tiny cell-like structures, but that is about as much information as you’ll get with the naked eye.

Under the microscope, however, we can see that each cell is an individual animal – the colony being formed by numerous clones living tightly packed together. When feeding, each animal extends a cone of tentacles, which are quickly retracted if it is disturbed.

Above right: Two micrographs of Mambranipora membranacea (L): Top showing extended feeding arms of the lophophore. Bottom, showing the growing edge of the animal, on Laminaria sp.

Barry

The sea is a mysterious place to those of us who only get to visit it for as long as our canned air lasts. In our short dives we often spot things which are puzzling or unexplained. One of the things we’d speculated about on more than one occasion was why sea urchins wear hats.

It is quite a common phenomenon to see them with bits of kelp stuck to their tops – and quite firmly held in place too! – We’d guessed that they might be camouflage, but the truth is a little more prosaic…

Kelp and other seaweeds are not terribly palatable, even to grazing animals such as the urchins. Once the fronds have been broken up, however, then they start to die, and are colonised by bacteria and fungi. As the fronds decompose the amount of protein increases, and they actually become more nutritious. Also, the defensive chemicals (such as phenols) that seaweeds use to deter grazing while they are alive start to disperse, so they become less toxic. As a consequence, it pays an urchin to hold onto a stash of seaweed fragments as a light snack, or possibly even to mature them a little for better eating later.

The urchin’s hat is, therefore, its equivalent of a lunchbox!

Thanks to Little et al. The Biology of Rocky Shores 2nd Ed. publisher OUP, 2009, p105-106 for the enlightenment! Also thanks to Rob for the photo.

It was not the most promising of days – a small group of walkers for the MCS joined over 500 walkers for Galloway’s Society for the Blind in heavy rain at Arnside on Saturday morning (15th August 2009). The forecast was for brighter weather later – so we hoped that would be the worst of it, and looked forward to arriving at a sunny at Kents Bank!

The great column of walkers set off on time, but soon snaked out over a mile. We gathered for a sandwich, and to let everyone catch up, just before walking out onto the sands proper at Far Arnside. Everyone had just about dried out from the earlier rain when we arrived at the Kent’s channel. Due to the numbers we crossed the channel in two waves – this prevents people following too closely after each other, which can result in the sand liquefying under the last people to cross. Those of us in the second wave watched with some trepidation as the waves broke over the waists of some of those crossing. Just as the second wave started to cross, the rain came down again, so we were soaked from the top and the bottom simultaneously! The water lever was deeper than anyone we spoke to could remember on a walk before, and rumour was that there had been some debate between the guides about turning back. In the event we all made it across safely – though soggily!

Finally, the better weather that had been promised arrived, and we were only a little damp by the time we reached Kents Bank, and finished drying in the sun in the Albion’s beer garden on our return to Arnside.

Thanks to everyone who took part in this years Cross Bay walk, all proceeds go to MCS’ Seas Fit For Life campaigns. Thanks also to Cedric Robinson, the Queen’s Guide, and to his very helpful team of assistants on the sand.

Studies on beach sands around Lake Michigan and Lake Superior in the USA have shown that beach sands are an important refuge for E. coli, and concentrations of the bacteria in the sand may be many times greater than that in the water, and persist for considerable periods of time. Scientists estimate that between 10 and 30 people per thousand are in danger of stomach upsets if they eat after playing in the sand without cleaning their hands – simply rinsing reduces the danger dramatically, though scrubbing with soap is best.

Frustratingly these studies refer to fresh water lakes, and it is not clear whether or not the same might be true of sea-water bathing beaches. Still, it is clearly advisable to follow your mother’s advice and always wash your hands before eating!

References
United States Geological Survey (2009, August 12). What Science Says About Beach Sand And Stomach Aches. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 13, 2009.
American Chemical Society (2007, May 29). Beach Sand May Harbor Disease-causing E. Coli Bacteria. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 13, 2009.