Weather better than of late i.e warmer and less windy! With very low spring tides, cleaning the P2 underwater camera was straightforward. Underwater visibility excellent and water temperature 8.9C.

The pontoon housing the camera is now very colourful with new growth algae as the new season gets underway. Very few fish about. A few two-spot gobies have been seen recently and a possible black-faced blenny, but no larger fish. The upstream camera revealed a peacock worm, Sabella pavonia, on one of the pontoon legs, the first time this species has been seen on the camera.

A survey along the edge of the channel revealed no shore crabs and no 'billie winter' prawns. However, there was a nice specimen of a slender spider crab, Macropodia sp, most probably deflexa, and many examples of what are believed to be daisy anenomes, Cereus pedunculatus. As usual there were many snakelocks anenomes, Anemonis viridis.

We have held 5 events so far this year and all have been well supported. The weather has been very kind to us. This weekend saw our second fossil walk in glorious sunshine and 39 people came. The high tides had caused the break up of one or two large blocks resulting in some rarer finds, notably pholadomya, Astarte (including 1 specimen with both valves). Everyone went away with a fossil collection very happy.

The scavenger hunt along the Bank was very well attended and some excellent natural specimens were found, including a pipe fish, dead sea slug, sea fans and lovely sea washed vertebrae.

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The weather has calmed down and the underwater visibility has improved. Managed to clean the underwater camera in moderate visibility. Water temperature now 9.3C. Managed to have a look round the seabed around the camera site. The algae is now beginning to grow strongly, presumably triggered by the lengthening days. Very few crabs around and even fewer prawns. The number of sea squirts is also well down compared with mid-autumn last year.

The spring low tides are currently very low, some of the lowest tides of the year. Part of the camera pontoon is exposed above the waterline at low tide.

Hoped to clean the underwater camera today, but underwater visibility was bad and combined with neap high tide meant that it was not possible. The water temperature has dropped in the last week and is now 7.6C.


Walking back along the Lyme Back shoreline showed that the beach profile has changed again in the storms of the last few days. They have also thrown up a lot of cuttlefish bones. The majority are from the common cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, but some were much smaller and may have been from a different species. The majority of the debris thrown up on the beach is of natural origin, seaweed, cuttlefish bones, branches etc. There is a small amount of man-made debris such as a chest freezer, sawn timber, and oil.