The sea emerged as a shimmering triangle between the folds of two rolling green hills. Despite the mild warmth and milky light of the September sunlight, there was a certain bite beneath it, a constant reminder that yes, it is summer, but it is Scottish summer, and hence you cannot escape the lingering threads of last winter or the descending cold of the next. As I neared the shore, the briney smell of seaweed washed over me, a tang of salt stinging my eyes. The beach was quiet, an empty expanse of grey-brown sand scattered with pleasingly smooth pebbles in soft shades of slate and dove, strewn with ribbons of sugar kelp discarded by the tide. Tiny gems of sea glass made frosty with sand and salt, embellished the strand line, glinting bottlegreen, amber, sapphire.
I picked my way over limbs of driftwood, weatherbeaten-smooth, and the open shells of mussels lying face up to the sky, the pearly inner hollows holding tiny pools of last night’s rain shower. Between them, twisted and matted into the sand, were the tangled fronds of Zostera Marina, our native seagrass, a green confetto decorating the shoreline and tumbling in the manes of the sea’s white horses far out in the distance. That was what I was here to see. Born and raised in a fishing village on the rugged Scottish coast, I have been exposed to the wild and fierce beauty of Scotland’s maritime borders my whole life, endlessly captivated by the stark and windswept seascapes, shifting planes of feathered dunes and tall cliffs alive with seabirds for which Scotland is so famed. But I had never, before this day, ventured into the subaquatic kingdoms of our Atlantic seagrass meadows.
A gull cried somewhere overhead, and I perched on the polished branch of an old oak tree, watching the sea. The clouds had parted and a torrent of sunlight was striking the water before me, sending sparkling diamonds across its surface which seemed to effervesce with an infectious energy, inviting me. I forgot the cold, the neoprene smell of my wetsuit, the nip of the breeze pulling at my hair, and plunged my feet into my fins. I was grateful for the warmth of my hood, which I pulled on before my mask and slightly musty snorkel.
The icy embrace of the water had me gasping for life and freezing to death all at once, a feeling that was immediately dispelled as soon as I glimpsed the edge of the meadow. The glassy orbs of bubbles surrounded me like the tips of crystal chandeliers I propelled myself through the shallows, over bare sand, mud, grey sediment studded with razor clams. A murkiness clung to the seabed, shrouded its detail from view until you were within inches of it, casting a mysterious, other worldly atmosphere. The rusty carapace of a shore crab scuttled beneath me, as a cloud of tiny sand smelt shimmered past like bullets shot from a gun. The contrast of fast and slow, dark and light, was disconcerting in a magical sort of way. Everything felt so real and tangible and yet so unfamiliar, as if I had entered a fairytale world not reached yet by mankind.
The edge of the meadow was suddenly before me, a vast pasture of rich emerald that swayed with the current, as if to music, shifting and dancing under gleaming shafts of sunlight. Goldsinny wrasse flickered mirror-like in the light, above the deep purple lamps of feather stars, reaching up towards the sky from their grassy posts. The speckled forms of green crabs jostled for space among the coppery wraps and folds of kelp, and great pillows and plumes of red algae billowed with the motion of the water, as if inflating and deflatting with breath, bejewelled with silvery bubbles of oxygen. A smattering of upturned shells glowed from the debris on the cloak of the seabed, where strands of seagrass fringing the edges were aglow with clouds of spined stickleback, flickering like fireflies in a forest of green. Ribbons of seaweed tied themselves around my ankles and wrists, grasping at me, pulling me into their world, the cold of the water long forgotten. A cluster of oyster shells spread like a shamrock beneath me. I was in awe.
The seagrass meadow was truly enchanting, much more so than I had ever imagined. Everywhere I looked, there was more to see; here a velvet-swimming crab snipping at yellow roots on the seafloor, there the peaceful, milky form of a barrel jellyfish drifting above the meadow in a state of pure serenity. It was like uncovering an old, forgotten jewellery box full of treasures, passed down through generations yet unfamiliar. I have long been fascinated by marine life, but I had never thought that the creatures and ecosystems under my own doorstep, beneath that tumultuous sea that I look out on every day, could mask so much unknown beauty. In my mind, beauty was reserved for exotic species embedded in the coral reefs of idyllic, tropical islands - not here, in my own homeland. How wrong I was.
I emerged from the sea heavily humbled, deeply awestruck, and trapped under the spell of this magical, whimsical, ethereal place. The cold bit into my bones, the thickness of my wetsuit slowing me down as I fumbled with white fingers to remove my fins and the bracelets of seaweed that now adorned my limbs. A large shell was lying in front of me, so ravaged by the years of raging sea storms it seemed almost fossilised, camouflaged into the sand and grit. I picked it up, felt the immense weight of it, with its hundreds of delicate layers spreading over its huge form, fusing together to create something impenetrable. It was bowl-sized, large enough for me to eat my porridge from, and looked like an oyster shell - but this size? Surely not. I stared at it in disbelief until the bleakness of the wind and my dripping wet hair chilled me back to reality. I ambled back up the beach. The giant shell came home with me, and after discovering that it was in fact an oyster shell, it sat proudly on my porcelain sink to bare a bar of lavender soap.
This, I found out, was a historic oyster shell, from hundreds of years ago when the coasts were encrusted in oyster reefs, under blankets of algae and a lot more fish. Oysters are no longer found in those immense numbers - they were wiped out by fisheries, looking to make a pretty penny from an extra seafood source - but the shells they left behind remind us of their existence here, and the incredible sizes some of the very oldest ones reached. Bringing back the oyster reefs of Scotland, along with seagrass meadows, is now a growing mission among communities up and down the coast, inspired by the shells thrown up onto the shores from a distant past. The sea never stops bringing us stories, and there is often more depth to them than you may think.
About the author: Sophie grew up in a fishing village on the coast of Scotland and has since studied the ecology of both Scottish and tropical shallow habitats as a marine scientist across the globe. She is now pursuing a PhD in seagrass ecology, and in her spare time works as a science writer and artist, sharing knowledge through storytelling and spending countless hours painting by the ocean. She hopes to dedicate her career to improving the restoration and protection of the vital marine habitats, such as seagrass meadows and oyster reefs, which are threatened by the many pressures we are all too familiar with.
You can find her on Instagram at @sophie.coxon and @subaquaticsophie, and read more from her marine experiences on her linked in profile here
