Underwater in Barrow

When Pelican of London graced the Tall Ship Fest 2024 in Barrow in Furness, I took the opportunity to explore the underwater world of Buccleuch Dock. Here is what I found…

My underwater drone was quite an attraction with the youngest visitors on Pelican (and some of their parents), and as I piloted the ROV along the dock wall from surface to bottom and then along to explore the depth, some of the kids even took the x-box controller off me and had a go themselves.

I was quite surprised at the diversity and abundance of life in Buccleuch Dock, a brackish body of water with little influx of seawater, sandwiched between Morrison’s car park and the industrial complex opposite.

But why should I be surprised? There are plenty of organisms that thrive in the dynamic and constantly changing worlds of rock pools and estuaries!

Notable for their absence are items of litter, tyres, supermarket trolleys and other items of ‘civilisation’ we seem to think have an affinity for water bodies. But then again, they may be somewhere in there, acting as artificial reefs for life?

The video below gives you a two-minute summary of the three hours of footage I took during the festival.

Many thanks to Andy Naylor, Dave Cooksey and the port authority for allowing me to deploy my blueye Pioneer in Buccleuch Dock during the Tall Ship Fest, to the crew of Spirit of Falmouth, who helped me recover the drone and to Emily Musphy Gray, who helped me with the identification of some of the organisms.

Featured Image: still from the video showing numerous daisy anemones and unidentified white worms among the mussels, algae and silt. (c) C Braungardt 2024.