Month: February 2015

  • Chilly but Fabulous – February Rockpools

    Chilly but Fabulous – February Rockpools

    I’m not cut out for rockpooling in a northerly wind in February. My hands are too frozen to hold my battered old camera steady, but nothing is going to make me miss this tide. It’s so low that the seagrass at Hannafore is high and dry and a shark is lurking in shin-deep water, but I haven’t seen that yet.

    A male Xantho incisus crab
    A male Xantho incisus crab
    A beautiful dahlia anemone (Urticina felina).
    A beautiful dahlia anemone (Urticina felina).

    There are fish, crabs, worms and brittle stars in droves (more…)

  • A Shark in the Rockpools: Hannafore, Cornwall

    A Shark in the Rockpools: Hannafore, Cornwall

    Fish often become trapped in the shallows during exceptionally low tides, even big fish like mullet and wrasse, but it’s the first time I’ve met an adult shark on a rockpooling trip.

    It’s been a cold but productive afternoon and I’m about to head home to defrost my painfully frozen fingers when a movement in the kelp around ten metres away grabs my attention. (more…)

  • Love on the Rocks at Mawgan Porth

    Love on the Rocks at Mawgan Porth

    I love this rock; no frame could suit it better than Mawgan Porth’s sheer cliffs, golden sand and wide horizon. Perhaps I need emotional counselling, but it really is a beauty. Its seaward side lifts its face to the churning Atlantic, defying the waves that batter and submerge it for most of the year. Only a few mussels and barnacles cling on to its western edge, oblivious to the storms and sunsets I have watched from here since childhood. (more…)

  • Half-Term Events

    Half-Term Events

    It’s exciting, healthy, educational and cheap. So, why not take the kids rock pooling with the experts this half-term or join a beach clean? (more…)

  • The Zen Guide to Rockpooling

    The Zen Guide to Rockpooling

    • Pick a quiet day of the week
    • At a quiet time of year
    • On a day with quiet weather
    • Go slowly and quietly
    • Stop. Watch. Let time go

    February is a wonderful month for rock pooling in Cornwall. Well, we think so, although we consider a packet of chocolate biscuits a pre-requisite for achieving anything, especially enlightenment, so (more…)