“Watch out for orange crabs, and jellyfish…they can give a sore sting,” warns Philip Price. “Pour hot water on it as quickly as you can.” It’s just after 9am on a dreich day in August and he’s in a boatshed on the shore of Loch Craignish, in Argyll.
Price – who describes himself as a ’seawilder’ – is giving a safety talk to a team of volunteers about to snorkel in the loch and harvest seagrass underwater. “Use this barrier cream for protection,” he adds, referring to the perils of jellyfish while holding up a plastic bottle. ”Put it on your face, hands and lips.”
The six volunteers, who hail from as far afield as Cambridge, London and Sardinia, listen intently and all heed Price’s advice. They have donned wetsuits and after the protective cream is applied, face masks and flippers are adjusted as the team prepares for the cold water plunge. The temperature of the loch, Price says, will be less than 15 degrees but he stresses that no-one is expected to stay in the water if they get too cold.
For four years now, Loch Craignish – which lies between Oban and the Crinan Canal, and opens to the Isle of Jura sound – has been home to a seagrass meadow restoration project hailed as a pioneering way to help mitigate the climate crisis.
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