Blogs and Guides

This was our third event and we have certainly got into the swing of things. Falmouth’s Tunnel Beach was again home to inviting shimmering rock pools hiding incredible marine life. Our morning started once again at the fantastic Princess Pavilion, where we greeted those taking part and signed them up to The Rock Pool Project. We got the day kickstarted with the classic Blue Recovery Wildlife Quiz where our groups had a great time learning about all the amazing creatures that they might discover down on the beach.

If, like me, you have ever looked into a colourful rock pool and wondered about all the small animals and plants that live in its green shadows, then a Blue Recovery Beach Day is for you! Blue Recovery’s first Rock Pool Beach Day got off to a great start this Month at Tunnel Beach here in Falmouth. Despite the clouds, an enthusiastic group of us met to see what wonders there were to find in the rock pools.

It seems as though people’s fascination with rock pooling is growing among the people of Falmouth. Last Saturday an enthusiastic group of rock poolers met up at the Princess Pavilion and we headed to Castle beach to see what could be found in and under the rocky shoreline.

I spend a great deal of my time in rock pools. As a PhD candidate at the University of Plymouth, it’s kind of my job. It is often back-aching, knee-busting, solitary work. Scrambling over barnacle-speckled rocks, slipping on splayed kelp, I stop to stoop over glassy pools of water, bits of ocean left behind by the tide’s retreat. Professionally, I study these places and the animals that live here. Personally, these spaces, the ever-shifting boundary zones where sea and land collide, are my favourite places to visit and explore.

There can’t be many social gatherings that are given over to celebrating the humble limpet(!), but that is exactly what happened at the Seco Lounge in the Royal William Yard on Thursday 29th Oct. 2022 with a ‘Loving Limpets’ social evening. The Rock Pool Project had put together an evening of expertise and sharing that revealed all sorts of facts about these crusty little pyramids, familiar to every beach visitor, but so little understood. Co-founder Alan Smith acted as compère for the event, with the organisation’s Falmouth branch being linked in via Zoom.

The broad-clawed porcelain crab is a charismatic little rock poolers favourite. It is the most common species of porcelain crab found in the UK and can often be found clinging tightly to the underside of rocks below mid tide level.