Under South East Seas
The BBC’s ‘Blue Planet’ series captivated millions with its breathtaking images of tropical reefs, polar shores and fantastical denizens of the deep. But what would the cameras reveal if they toured our region’s seas?
Join us on an imaginary submersible-ride around some of the hidden highlights of South East England.
Hatches closed? Check. Fuel? Check. Atmospheric control systems? Check. We’re ready to go! As we descend slowly into the turbid waters of the western Solent, our eyes struggle to adjust to the deepening gloom. 15 metres down we pause, lights on, waiting for the swirling silt to clear. Nothing…then suddenly the seabed snaps into focus: a muddy moonscape of shells and pebbles. A forest of peacock worms catches my eye, tentacles extended from their parchment tubes. They bend and flail in the tidal current like palm trees in a tropical storm. Startled from its slumber, a cuttlefish jets into view, raising two arms above its head in a flamenco-style threat. We head south.
Off the Isle of Wight we weave amongst cliffs and boulders of green, pink and grey. A flash of neon blue reveals a male corkwing wrasse, the Laurence Llewellyn Bowen of the fish world. He’s busy furnishing his ‘bachelor pad’ with this season’s colours, carrying pieces of seaweed in his mouth and arranging them just so. If he’s lucky a female might just choose to lay her eggs there.
We’re off the Sussex coast now, cruising at a depth of 10 metres. Between Worthing and Brighton we encounter a long reef running parallel to the coast, possibly the UK’s only offshore chalk reef. A tiny tompot blenny, undaunted by our stature, stands his ground. Who are we to argue with a fish that sports antlers?!
Taking a dogleg to the south east, we visit the vast, mid-Channel gravel beds, 50 metres down. Here every surface, every square centimetre, is home to something: sponges, sea squirts, worms, anemones, crabs, shrimps and a host of colonial animals. Scallops clap haphazardly about amongst loitering flatfish.
North east and we’re into the Dover Strait. Or is it the Sahara? Golden dunes rise 40 metres above the surrounding seabed, their surfaces sculpted into mesmerising patterns of ripples and waves. A beast of burden labours into view – the netted whelk, a sea snail.
North to Kent’s Thanet coast now, and the cloudy waters of the southern North Sea. We hover above a seemingly limitless chalk platform that is riddled with the burrows of that most denigrated of molluscs, the boring piddock.
Into the Thames estuary and it seems like school is out. Juvenile fish, young crabs and hordes of shrimp scuttle in the flooding tide. It’s getting lighter now, and all too soon we’re bobbing at the surface, beneath the watchful gaze of the London Eye. Although we barely began to explore the South East’s seas, our tour is over.
