North Norfolk Chalk Reef

During last week's crazy heatwave it was a no-brainer to get in the sea as much as possible if you lived near the coast.  Luckily the calm weather the heatwave brought also meant the sea was very flat for a few days which allowed the sediment to drop out of the water column and provide good conditions for snorkelling on the reef here at Sheringham.It wasn't the clearest I've seen it but definitely still worth getting in for.While I was waiting for the tide to drop I put the drone up to get some aerial shots of the coast & the reef from above and as you can see from the photos below it was looking pretty Caribbean!Nice to see the outline of the wreck of the SS Commodore is still visible although largely under sand now due to the shifting substrate.Below are some of the critters I managed to photograph on the two snorkel trips out onto the reef last week....It was a real buzz to be able to get out into the sea for a snorkel again, so many people are surprised both by how clear the North Sea can get during calm weather but also at the incredible array of sea life and colours in this thriving ecosystem less than a stone's throw from the low water mark here in Sheringham.It's been great to see such media interest in the images once again with the Norfolk Magazine featuring an article I wrote in this month's magazine - ...also pages 2 and 3 in Saturday's EDP -...and the BBC News national page showing the photos in an article on today's homepage -*UPDATE* This evening I had a live interview at BBC Look East about the reef footage -

I also put together a few video clips from last week's trips here -If you'd like to learn more about how to snorkel safely on the North Norfolk chalk reef have a look at my video here -