Seasearch News

Updated 4th June 2009

Seasearch Diving for 2009 well underway

With the exception of one weekend, May was a good month for diving around most of our coasts and Seasearch dives have been taking place in many areas. The data is now starting to come in and so far we have 272 forms recorded from Shetland to the Isles of Scilly. There is always a delay in receiving data and there are probably many more on the way.

Most of the data so far comes from sites in England and includes dives in Yorkshire, Kent, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Wales comes next and then the Isle of Man, where we have already had 20 forms from local and visiting divers.

83% 0f the forms received have been Observation Forms which reflects all the training courses and training dives undertaken in the first half of the year. We expect the percentage of survey forms to increase on the survey dives now taking place and also to start receiving sea fan, egg case and crawfish records.

One of the techniques being developed in Dorset and elsewhere is to plot the divers as they move about on the seabed by use of a GPS unit attached to a surface marker buoy. This also allows us to link photographs with GPS positions. It has already been used to map the extent of sea grass beds. The photos below show the GPS unit with its own buoy and form filling underway in bright sunshine afterwards.

A summary of the remaining Seasearch surveys for 2009 can be found on our Diving page and there have never been so many opportunities to go Seasearch diving. Contact the dive organisers for more information but also remember that any dive can be a Seasearch dive. We are always keen to see your information wherever you sea dive around Britain and Ireland.

Seasearch Training and Qualifications

We have already run 31 Seasearch Courses this year with over 350 participants. 23 of them have been Observer Courses and there are another 13 currently listed on our Training page and more still in the pipeline. The photo below is from one of the the latest and largest courses of the year at the University of London Union on 9th May.

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There have also been two Surveyor Courses and 6 specialist ID courses. For those of you who are finding the Observation Form too small and want to move on to the Survey form we have a five day course and survey event in the Sound of Mull in August. This is designed to make it worth people's while travelling some distance to experience an excellent diving area.

During May and June so far 4 volunteers have completed their Observer Qualification. They are Anna Cawthray, Bill Larnach, Wendy Cooke and Robin Smith. There have also been two new Surveyors, Georgia Conolly and Paula Lightfoot.

Congratulations to them all.

Latest Seasearch Divewear now available

As a result of popular demand we now have stocks of Seasearch woolly hats which are set to be the 'must have' accessory for Seasearch divers on those all too frequent less than perfect days at sea. The hat is black with the Seasearch logo and a thinsulate lining, which makes it very warm. Seasearch coordinator for East Anglia Dawn Watson is modelling it and certainly looks pleased.

Hats will be available at selected Seasearch events and can be ordered on line from the Seasearch/MCS shop. The price is only £5.00 + £1.50 P&P where appropriate.

Searching for Seaweeds

During 2009 we are working on a new Seasearch guide to seaweeds which is being written by Francis Bunker. Seaweeds are often poorly recorded in Seasearch surveys but, at shallow sites, they can be abundant. We hope the new guide will change all that by providing an easily accessible guide with both underwater images and images of pressed specimens.

We need your help to put together the images to go in the book. We will be looking for top-quality images which show both the seaweeds in their natural setting and also the diagnostic features of each species wherever possible. Red seaweeds in particular absorb huge amounts of light so getting bright, well-lit, pictures of them is not easy.

There is a list of the species we want images of which can be downloaded below. There is no great urgency but if you would like to send us those you already have now and follow them up later in the summer after a season of taking pictures of them that is fine. Instructions on where to send images are on the link.

Seaweed List