Now I have to confess that during my diving days I was quite mean to some sea creatures, having chased octopus to make them squirt ink, poked a triggerfish's trigger repeatedly until it came at me and sent me sprawling on my back ith my lags in the air like a dead ant, played 'boff' with blennies and squeezed a few sea cucumbers to make them squirt the stringy white stuff out (which I was told they then suck back in so I assumed I was doing no harm).

Now I know better and it was very sad to see so many dead and dying sea cucumbers washed up on the beach a few weeks ago after a bit of stormy weather. There must have been hundreds of them strung out in a dark line along the high tide mark, some still gently wobbling away whilst others were evidently very dead having ejected their internal organs. What was strange was that they were concentrated into a 100m or so stretch of shoreline rather than all the way along the 4km beach. I guess that's the way the currents work on this beach.

Further along the beach were collections of hermit crabs and cockles. The next day most of these were gone so hopefully the crabs had managed to scuttle their way back into the sea.


Where they have come from we can only guess; maybe the storms at sea over the past week has thrown them here. Another thought put forward was that they were the by-catch from a fisherman's nets that had then been dumped close inshore.

Whatever the reason, it was sad to see them all knowing there wasn't much we could do for them. Hopefully the tide will come high enough to take them back into the folds of the waves to give them a burial at sea.