SATURDAY'S SANCTUARY

With oil slicking-up the beaches on both sides of the world, my thoughts, this Saturday, turned to the sea.

The Finding-Sanctuary Organisation works on marine conservation in the south west of England. It focuses on a relatively small section of the sea and the coast, working within a co-operative of organisations protectively, encircling the coastline of the UK.

In diverse habitats – the maerl and eelgrass beds, rocky reefs, deepwater estuaries, sand banks and gravel patches – the coastal waters of the south-west have some of the richest populations of bio-diversity in British waters.

The stake holders who work together hold wide, and opposing, reasons for wanting to protect the sea that laps here.

A visit to this coastline offers one reason why those at the cliff-face of marine protection called this work Finding-Sanctuary. 

When I stand on the coast here I feel bigger on the inside. I cannot contain how I feel as my senses are overwhelmed by the sea: the sights, sounds and smells – the way it feels to touch.

I know why people want to write about becoming more at one with the elemental forces at work there. To find ways to become closer with the sea and the creatures that/who live there.

The sea can be a sanctuary.


Have you experimented with writing a story involving the sea, not as a danger, but as a sanctuary?