Snorkel Safari

Nature Festival organiser Anne Bignall takes Living Orkney underwater to experience the joys of snorkelling around the countys coastline
WORDS: Amy Liptrot Photos: Amy Liptrot and courtesy of Anne Bignall It is not easy to talk through a snorkel mask but, in order to experience her interesting hobby, this interview begins with Anne Bignall taking Living Orkney snorkelling off the coast of Papa Westray. At a rocky area of North Wick bay, we put on wet and dry suits, neoprene boots and gloves, flippers and snorkel masks and slip into the water like less-elegant seals. First time snorkeling hits you with several new sensations: firstly being in the water with the protection of the wetsuit and breathing through the snorkel, but secondly and most memorably, looking underwater, close to the seabed, able to see clearly this usually hidden domain. Although the tide is too high and wind too strong for ideal snorkelling conditions, the dip is enough to get an idea of the different world Anne talks enthusiastically about entering. Its a completely new experience everything looks slightly magnified and sound travels faster you feel

Anne Bignall

Living Orkney

11

like you are part of a new ecosystem. As you go in a bit deeper, the kelp can stand up to a couple of metres high and you feel like you are in a forest. Its very relaxing, you dont need to put in loads of effort, you are just floating in the water. You are absorbing so much and concentrating and everything is new. You get out of the water and feel like youve really done something with your day. Beautiful and strange fish, sea urchins, anemones and jellyfish, are just some of the creatures Anne sees regularly and she explains that when you see things washed up on the beach, they are dead or out-of-place, but when you see them underwater they come alive. Jellyfish are fantastic the way they move in the water is really lovely. A chance for anyone to try snorkelling will be part of the first Orkney Nature Festival, held from May 11-19, which Anne is organising as part of the Enjoy Wild Orkney project. Anne is a good person to go with on a coastal walk. She identifies some fresh otter spraint (poo) on the pebbles and points out a quickly moving turnstone making this little patch of island seem richer through observations. This effect of new knowledge and enjoyment of the natural world is what events in the festival hope to achieve.

Back on dry land, Anne explains how she started snorkelling: I used to do a bit of diving and about a year and a half ago I tried snorkelling, thinking that it was poor mans diving but I found that to me its equally good in terms of the wildlife you see. You dont have all the equipment you need for scuba diving, you can feel less encumbered and you can stay pottering in the shallows for hours. Anne often goes out with Penny Martin, another snorkeller and creator of the Snorkel Orkney facebook page, but she also goes out alone: Ill just have the stuff in the back of my car and on the way home from work in the summer, if I see a bit that looks good, I can just jump in! Sometimes we stay in for up to two hours. Around Orkney, its become really apparent to me how many different habitats we have in the shallows. Youve got different rocky shores, sandy and muddy areas, man-made structures and eelgrass beds... Anne says that one of the best places in Orkney for snorkelling is the Churchill Barriers. It does have to be fairly flat otherwise you are bobbing up and down, and if its really churned up you cant see anything but there is always one side of the barriers that is just about alright.

Dahlia Anemone splitting into two

12

Living Orkney

Flatfish at the barriers She describes what she sees underwater around the barriers: On the blocks themselves, youve got small plumose anemones and other sessile animals like seasquirts, sponges and bryozoans. You might even see a conger eel exploring in among the blocks. In the sheltered areas there is a sandy bottom thats got some interesting stuff on it like flatfish and scorpion fish which are real characters. The seaweed around the barriers is really pretty there is lots of red and green seaweed among the brown kelp, so its like a garden underwater, and things like blue ray limpets grow on the kelp. There are lots of fish like butter fish, five bearded rockling, and in the summer you get young wrasse and pollack. They can be all around you and its like being in a fishbowl sometimes! Anne moved to Orkney seven years ago from Sussex where she was working as an illustrator. I came here wanting to do a completely different job, something to do with the environment, but still do art as well, she says. She spent a few years as Ranger on Eday, then moved to work for the Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership and it was during that time that she started snorkelling. When the Scapa Flow scheme ended, she took up her current role at the RSPB working on the Nature Festival. Anne still makes her own artwork and is also illustrating a new Orkney book of Wild Flowers by Tim Dean. The environment in Orkney both underwater and above has been really inspirational, she says. Over recent years, Anne has taken an Open University Natural Sciences degree at home in the evenings, but says Ive learnt so much from just doing things here and speaking to people there are so many knowledgeable people in Orkney. I enjoy being in amongst it all... there is a lot more to learn. The Nature Festival, taking place over three years, will showcase all of Orkneys wildlife and will encourage people to come and visit as well as giving people who already live here the opportunity to get out and about. It is part of Enjoy Wild Orkney, administered by the RSPB and including lots of other groups within Orkney. Events in the festival will include, weather permitting, excursions to uninhabited islands like Auskerry, Swona or Fara. There will also be boat trips around Noup Head on Westray, to see the bustling seabird cliffs from below, and a puffin cruise along the south coast of South Ronaldsay and the Pentland Skerries. Guides will be onboard and passengers might be able to see things like gannets diving alongside the boat and perhaps even passing whales or dolphins. For those who want to remain on land, there will be plenty

Living Orkney

13

Orkney quite a large number of people are going to jump in their cars to go and see it, but underwater stuff, we dont know so much about. Every time I go out I see something new. The other day I saw loads of pink, bobbly fish eggs and I didnt know what they were, I thought it was too early. I also recently saw a dahlia anemone splitting in two, something I knew was possible but hadnt seen. Anne leaves Living Orkney eyeing up promising parts of the Papay coast, wishing her well in her ambition to see an octopus in the wild, or even make Orkneys first record in over 150 years of a seahorse. I didnt move to Orkney because of the underwater wildlife, it was more wanting to live out in the country, but now I have discovered how fantastic it is, I spend quite a lot of my life doing things associated with underwater. These days, I would always rather go in the water, even on the most miserable day, than be indoors. n Seabed at Deersound of guided walks, bus tours and even a bird-watching trip by horse-drawn carriage. There will be visits to lots of different habitats including an urban wildlife day in Kirkwall. A marine day will include a snorkel safari, a seashore wildlife identification walk and a special pick up 3 pieces marine litter awareness event. The finale to the festival is a banquet of sustainable, local food on Shapinsay created by the Balfour Castle chef Jean-Baptist Baden. There will be music, and the menu will include things like diver-caught scallops and even seaweed, so it should be really special, says Anne. I hope that the festival brings people to Orkney and sells Orkney as a wonderful place to see nature. However, I also hope that people in Orkney, even those who dont perhaps consider themselves typical wildlife enthusiasts, get enjoyment out of the festival and a real appreciation for what an important place Orkney is for wildlife, Anne continues. Sometimes you can live in a place and are so involved in day-to-day life that you dont see things that are on your doorstep you dont walk around that bit of coastline or go out to that headland. Once you get out there, and see how wonderful the natural world is, you want to care for it and want it to be here for years to come for other people, as well as for its own intrinsic value. This conservation message is something Anne has discovered for herself through watching wildlife and snorkelling: When you look underwater, you start to see how fragile it is: a delicate marine habitat which can be easily destroyed. It is easy to not protect what you dont know is there and its amazing how much underwater stuff in Orkney is unrecorded. If a rare bird comes over FIND OUT MORE: http://www.orkneynaturefestival.org/ Search for the Snorkel Orkney group on Facebook

Saturday May 11th Sunday May 19th

Registered charity Scotland no SCO37654

For all the details and booking info, visit www.orkneynaturefestival.org or ring 01856 850176

14

Living Orkney