South Gare, 2023
By Tessa Bunney on 21 August 2023
John Lampett, scuba diver, snorkeler and underwater photographer, July 2023
” 5 of us snorkelled at the South Gare on Sunday (9 July), the conditions looked good although the visibility was a bit milky probably due the the recent rains and winds . Although not great for photography we still managed to see plenty of life in the shallow water. There were a few harbour crabs and a couple of shore crabs tucked under the rocks, plenty of small common sea urchins grazing on the sea bed, many of them decorated with seashell hats. We saw sea hares and their eggs, brittlestars densely coated some the rocks and the kelp and there were dahlia anemones on the sea bed. Shoals of greater and lesser sand eels were coming and going in the water column. As the tide turned it became choppy and we returned to shore occasionally disturbing flatfish resting on the sea bed”.
Photographs courtesy of John Lampett: Lumpsucker, Lion’s Mane Jellyfish, Lined Polycera – Nudibranch, Flatfish
“At low tide you can see what you are doing, in the summer it clears up nicely, it can be just 6 or 7 inches of water but if I’m taking photos it’s ideal for me.
We have what I call a bit of a lagoon at low tide. There are 3 spoil heaps that were probably dumped when they built the Gare in the 19th Century. I have read they are called the ‘German Charlies’. They form a protective barrier that is good for snorkelling especially at low tide. There is a good range of terrain and a mixture of habitats starting from sandy beach, worm beds, rough cobbles of blast furnace slag and kept beds.
I dived and snorkelled all the way through the summer of 2021, it was absolutely normal. Loads of life in here, you couldn’t move for small crabs, little green velvet crabs, shore crabs until we get to October 2021 when I cam down snorkelling, it was a bit odd and I saw the Environment Agency over on the other beach, I think the guys who do the velvets on the tyres called them in because there were lots of dead crabs upside down on the beach, looking in distress, but I never really thought that much of it, it wasn’t massive at the time.
I went in snorkelling here and it was absolutely appalling visibility, I’ve never had it before where there was silt on my camera, on my clothes everywhere, it was really thick in there. It was the start of it for me.
Then like everyone else we saw the terrible big die off happen across the beaches in the region. There were still crabs and lobsters dying off here up to May 2022. I carried on snorkelling last summer (2022) and everything was looking normal but there weren’t any crabs. There was till plenty of other life, but I think things were out of balance.
John Lampett’s journal, May 2022
Things have started to recover but it is going to take a long time. We are seeing the return of lobsters and harbour crabs, also this year, 2023, I am seeing the return of a few velvet swimming crabs and some some edible crabs in the intertidal area.”
John Lampett, February / July 2023