Sometimes it takes a little bit of lateral thinking ….
I have been invited to give a talk at the Royal County of Berkshire Yacht Club…hang on, I thought, Berkshire has no coastline!?!? But then, as the Commodore’s welcome explains:
“The Royal Berkshire Yacht Club was originally established over twenty years ago by a small group of enthusiasts who had just completed their shore-based RYA course and wanted to develop their practical skills further.
Today we are a diverse club with about 100 members across a broad range of adult age groups, well represented by both males and females. A key focus of the club’s activities continues to be to develop members sailing skills via experience out on the water. Whether you are a complete novice or have some experience, interested in building up to your RYA Yachtmaster or simply want to enjoy sailing in a safe, fun and friendly environment, we are the club for you.”
My own passion for being by, on, in and under the water and my work with the sail training organisation Pelican of London has led me to explore a multitude of crowd-sourcing-data-projects, which everybody can make a contribution to. Whether it’s rock pooling with the i-Naturalist app, looking for mermaid’s purses on the beach, or conducting a 2 hour dedicated marine mammal transect survey while sailing on a steady wind with nothing else to do, data collection for Citizen Science projects is a good way of contributing to marine conservation, giving back to nature.
That’s what I’ll talk about at the RBYC (3rd June, online or in person, check out this LINK).
My favourite Citizen Science projects are run by the following organisations:
Challenging Habitat 
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