Meadfoot

Realising we were in for another day of sunshine, I reckoned it'd be crime not to go snorkelling. Packing the same set-up I used at Lamorna the other day, we set off for Meadfoot Beach. Parked for free along the road and near some steps down to the beach, and set up camp. Though I'd read that the beach was popular for dive training, I hoped that it'd be good for snorkelling too.

Where I got in, halfway along the beach to the right of the rocks the vis was poor, a murky 1 or 2 metres. But as I went along toward Daddyhole Cove it got better. There were a few starfish, sprats, wrasse etc, amongst the kelp. Near Daddyhole I turned back because I didn't like swell, and made for East Shag Rock instead, which in itself - according to my dive book - is a 350 metre swim. [There is also a completely submerged dome-shaped reef towards the the middle of the bay, not far from Shag Rock.]

Around the rock, which has some good underwater scenery, there were various interesting sponges (large boring sponges, a massive irregular purple kind with clusters of tiny holes, a rough yellow globular one about the size of melon, and the smooth orange blobby type with a hole in the top), dead men's fingers, sea squirts, and anenomes. There were fan worms, nudibranch eggs, and hundreds of common starfish. The visibility varied a lot (1-4 metres) and though I had timed my swim for an hour either side of low water, because of the spring tide, there was still a fair bit of current.

Keeping a lookout for boat traffic, I left the rock and followed the reefy bits back to the shore and carried on across the bay over the kelp, where I saw a dogfish. I was very pleased to have found so much - and to have managed a 2 hour swim in April. The water was noticeably warmer than in Cornwall. Back on the beach some people had found an unusual crab - which they kindly brought over for me to see. Looking it up later I learnt this small spider-like crab is sometimes known as a 'decorator crab', and the camouflage is seaweed. Spiny spider crabs do this too, adding a few strands of seaweed to their shell, but this particular crab had disguised itself completely with tiny strands of wrack.