How I became a snorkelling volunteer with Seasearch

I'm among the privileged few who get to call Cornwall their home. Aside from time spent living elsewhere for university and shortly after, I've been here my whole life. I've loved nature for as long as I can remember - I set up a pond club at primary school (consisted of me and one friend!) so I could spend lunchtimes poking around looking at beetles and tadpoles, and went on to study Marine Biology at university. But although I now work in environmental science and part of my role includes surveying estuary fish, I've never quite managed to manoeuvre my career into my passion of marine ecology.

Jenny at the coast in Cornwall.

Since my late teens I've always had hobbies that revolve around the sea - first diving and then surfing - but in the last 2 or 3 years, I've found the surfing beaches just too busy, and so to get a bit of space to myself, I started snorkelling.

In 2022 I began to get a bit obsessive about it. During the summer months I went in whenever I could find somewhere calm, and started to film what I could on a GoPro.

I can't remember where I heard about Seasearch, but I think it was towards the end of 2022 that I contacted the lead for Seasearch in Cornwall, Matt Slater, to ask about a training course for snorkellers, and realised that even if I wasn't working in marine ecology, I could get just as much enjoyment through volunteering in the field. Typically, the first available course was while I was away on holiday (snorkelling in Malaysia :-)), but I got a space on the next one held in April 2023 in Penzance.

Jenny out snorkelling in Cornwall.

The Seasearch training was great. Matt Slater and Mary Ledlie who lead the course were both so warm, knowledgeable and enthusiastic that I think all of us left clutching our training notes and raring to go. I was so over excited that as soon as I got home I filled out my first ‘qualifying’ form covering the snorkel I’d been on the day before!!

I did really enjoy my snorkelling in 2022, and always tried to positively identify the life I’d encountered, but I found that snorkelling for Seasearch gave me an extra focus that almost seemed to make me see more.

As the water very rapidly warmed up thanks to a marine heatwave in the spring of 2023, I got my five Seasearch qualifying forms done by mid-May, and I was hooked.

Mary teaching on a Seasearch Observer course in Cornwall.

I spent pretty much every spare minute studying the tides and weather forecasts (and occasionally my work calendar just in case there was something else important I should be doing) to see when and where I could get in the sea. I bought myself a dive computer so I could more accurately record temperatures and depths. It turns out I was only diving to about 4m and not the 8-10 I had imagined!! And got a macro lens and a video light to add to my GoPro.

I live in mid-Cornwall, so my nearest spots are in St Austell Bay, and I do snorkel there more than anywhere else. I get in at least twice a week most weeks, some days getting up early and snorkelling before work, which is such a great way to start the day.

In 2023 I've filled out Seasearch Observer forms for snorkels from about 20 different spots across Cornwall on both north and south coasts in habitats including kelp forests, maerl beds, seagrass meadows (sometimes all three in one snorkel), and even one spot halfway up an estuary.

Catshark in a seagrass bed in Cornwall.

And I've seen so much marine life: cuttlefish in the St Austell seagrass bed including a male guarding a female while she laid her eggs; lots of beautiful catsharks; seals; over 25 species of fish including at Talland Bay a black faced blenny in its non-breeding colours which took me ages to figure out; loads of lobsters, squat lobsters and crabs; beautiful jellies and salps; and so many stunning anemones including a snakelocks in Barbie colours at Hemmick.

It has been a great summer of snorkelling for Seasearch in 2023, encountering a huge number of wonderful organisms, and I'm looking forward to seeing many more next year!

Cuttlefish on seabed in St Austell Bay.

Further information about Seasearch in Cornwall from Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

Photos all by Jenny except image of Mary teaching which was taken by Matt Slater.

AUTHOR

Jenny Kent
Seasearch Volunteer

I first went diving in the Red Sea in 2000, and though I did dive occasionally for a few years back in the UK, it was only in 2020 when I got my first GoPro camera that my complete obsession with snorkelling in Cornwall really set in. I started recording my snorkels for Seasearch in May 2023.

I also volunteer for Prickles and Paws Hedgehog Rescue where I get to help rehabilitate these lovely, charismatic little animals. I work for the Environment Agency where my favourite part of the job is leading on the fish identification on our estuary fish surveys where we get to be close up with the fish out of water!