Blowing Away Those Lockdown Blues

Sea air, salt in your face, soaring seabirds – damn I’ve missed this during lockdown! As the rib headed out from the historical south Devon harbour of Teignmouth into Lyme Bay, I gulped deep lung fulls of ocean breeze, and settled in for the ride. Immediately I felt more settled, my mind is never calmer than when out on the water.

It was 17th March when I was last on the ocean, disembarking a Hurtigruten expedition cruise ship at Portsmouth. Under a week later on 23rd March the UK went into Covid lockdown. Subsequently my spring and summer working at sea off the coasts of Iceland and then Alaska was cancelled. Thus far my experience with Coronavirus has been relatively mild compared to so many unfortunate families around the world and for that I am hugely grateful. But to say that over three months confined to land had left me craving the sea would be a gross understatement. So as restrictions have just eased somewhat I headed out today, not as a guide but as a punter, with Devon Sea Safaris.

Searching for marine mammals as we sailed, our first stop was the Orestone, a Middle Devonian limestone rock off the coast of Labrador Bay. Despite coming to the end of breeding season for many seabirds, there were still plenty of razorbills, guillemots and shags around. This will be the first time in many seasons when I haven’t been able to make it to some of the UK’s numerous seabird colonies. This year must have felt like some sort of parallel universe for them as they carried on their eternal cycle of life whilst humankind essentially stopped and temporarily disappeared from their lives.

As we circled the rock a stunning peregrine falcon showed off some of it’s natural acrobatics above us.

We were hoping to find some dolphins in the bay but they didn’t materialise. However, Berry Head provided us with good views of three or four harbour porpoise surfacing as they fed all around us.

Cruising back along the coast from Babbacombe to Shaldon, past cliffs of deep Red Permian Breccia (essentially desert 250 million years ago) we stopped to photograph half a dozen Atlantic grey seals hauled out on the rocks.

A lot of people have been looking forward to the lifting of restrictions, especially the opening of pubs and restaurants. Apparently the pubs open up again tomorrow. But all I longed for was to get back out on the water and check out what our marine wildlife was up to. Needless to say, it turns out they were still there doing their thing, getting on with life, perfectly happy without us. We might have missed them but I suspect that they won’t have missed us at all.