Warsash Spring Beach Clean part 2
Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) is calling on coastal community volunteers to roll up their sleeves in the wake of the winter storms and head down to their nearest Big Spring Beach Clean event, which will be running at over 120 of our beautiful beaches across the UK this 28th, 29th, 30th & 31st March to help tackle the marine litter crisis.
Coastal communities have found their beaches impacted by marine litter at an unprecedented scale. Tide lines are covered in a thick, multi-coloured layer of marine litter as far as the eye can see. Cotton bud sticks, shipping crates, carrier bags, water bottles, fishing netting, cigarette butts, mermaid's tears -- the vast majority of it plastics. So this February SAS called on beach lovers across the UK to respond to this crisis and to register their favourite beaches as part of their Big Spring Beach Clean.
The response of community lead volunteers has been truly inspiring and with Big Spring Beach Cleans going ahead at over 130 beaches from Sennen (nr Land's End) to Thurso (nr John O' Groats) and Cromer to Portrush, SAS are now calling for thousands of volunteers to support their local events by heading down and lending their helping hands to remove over 15 tonnes of marine litter from our precious coastlines this March the 28th -- 31st.
There are over 15 events planned for South Coast Beaches during the Big Spring Beach Clean weekend, all of these are run by Lead Volunteers in their local community.
Everyone is welcome at these fantastic events so find your nearest Big Spring Beach Clean by heading to the SAS events page ( emailing beachcleans@sas.org.uk or call 01872 553001 and get involved. Surfers Against Sewage have provided Lead Volunteers with beach clean equipment plus full health and safety, public liability and event organisation support. Meaning that you can be sure of a safe, informative and, most importantly, fun event!
Big Spring Beach Clean Events along the South Coast (We are still awaiting confirmation for some of the beach cleans on the South Coast please see sas.org.uk/events for up to date information)
24/32 Cleggan to Kilrush. Heading south along the west coast of Ireland towards the Shannon.
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It's a windy, grey day on the Aran Islands making the looming rock cliffs of Moher look especially daunting. Shark Bay then meets disaster, colliding with a massive sunfish and then becoming entangled in a mat of floating nets...their prop is damaged. They make it into the Shannon, past vast bird colonies to Kilrush Creek where they overnight in the lock!
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24/32 Cleggan to Kilrush. Heading south along the west coast of Ireland towards the Shannon
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Well it’s morning and at least the fog’s cleared. Still grey and we’ve got about a force 5 wind from the north but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. It’s gonna be following us so we’re gonna go out and see what the sea looks like. We ended up spending the night here in Cleggan Harbour after we’d refuelled. We moored up against a couple of the old fishing boats here – there’s no actual visitors’ moorings here. We could’ve anchored but it was just as easy to pull up alongside here and raft up. So we’re gonna head off today – we’re gonna head south. We’re certainly aiming for the Shannon and maybe a little bit further again depending on the weather. Anyway, we’re gonna head out to sea and see what the day brings.
Few boats venture outside the sheer sea cliffs of the Aran Islands, most taking the sheltered inside passage between the islands and the mainland. But with reasonable conditions, we cruised along these spectacular rock walls.
Here we are at the Cliffs of Moher. Last time me and John were here it was a very different scene, and we definitely wouldn’t have been sitting here this close. We were filming some surfing – I was on a little rib and John was on top of the cliff. It had been raining for hours – it rained the whole time we were there for over 6 hours. We had our cameras wrapped in a towel. But these guys were surfing some of the biggest waves ever surfed in the British Isles or the UK.
Then, an hour later, disaster struck again.
I just had a horrible experience – still having it right now, feeling pretty stick. Me and John cruising along then - sun’s shining, having a real good time - we just heard this clunk… weren’t really paying attention. We looked back and there were a couple of buoys there – we were like, “Ah, no! We’ve hit some pots!” Whatever we hit was not dragging us back and it stopped but it was a heavy hit. We hit a log ages ago off the east coast and it felt more like that. I said, “That was no pot, that was a basker or something.” We went back, saw something big in the water and were like, “No, no, no, no!” It was a bloody massive sunfish. It was on the surface for a bit… I actually feel sick. He wasn’t well – lots of flesh and lots of blood… I don’t know what we’d do but it was just a horrible, horrible thing to happen.
I’m trying to save getting my wetsuit on, but it seems to be working! I’m getting handfuls every now and then.
An hour later and another collision with a submerged object, and the port engine started revving high – we’d run over a floating mat of net.
Whoever said bring a breadknife was right! I think that’s it. There we go… nice.
Now, two problems. First of all, will it start, and secondly, will the gears engage? Or will we have more serious damage… Well the engines have started… It’s in gear… And it’s moving us along! We’ve had a look at the prop – we’ve got some chunks out of it, that’s for sure, but fortunately we’ve freed up the net. That was a huge big of floating net – we’re very luck it didn’t get around both of them. Nice job, Fi! Well done mate.
You shouldn’t have run over it in the first place though!
Yeah… True, true.
Where are we?
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Catching a 112lb mako shark in Portugal
We went on a shark fishing trip with Martin and John in Lagos, Portugal. We caught 9 sharks in 2 days, this was the biggest. Great fun!