Thank you Coast Office!

Here is our shout out to the COAST Office in Portballintrae, to tell them how FINTASTIC they have been in their work with Ulster Wildlife throughout the past few years.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the COAST Office is a centre for watersports and maritime pursuits as a solution to health, wellbeing and understanding development in NI communities. They build an understanding of Portballintrae by encouraging people to explore and preserve the unique heritage of the village. They inspire people to learn to enjoy the bay and coastlines around Portballintrae in new, unique, and fun ways.

During the summer of 2019, the COAST Office have helped us to organise and hold educational and fun Seas themed events, such as a Radical Rockpool Ramble, a Snorkel Safari and a Night-time Sea Safari event! All of this work has helped to educate people on our local marine biodiversity and the threats our seas are facing. We also worked with the COAST Office on the Sea Deep project, which is focused on the conservation of sharks, skates and rays. We have held a shark and skate egg case ID workshop with the COAST office and they have been of great help finding egg cases and involving locals in the citizen science aspect of Sea Deep!

Recently, we had a staff training day out with the COAST Office who gave a group of Ulster Wildlife staff some training in kayaking and paddle boarding with two enthusiastic instructors. They were then able to join us on an intertidal survey behind their base in Portballintrae, and got to collect some citizen science data using some of our Shoresearch methods. The COAST Office have been very generous of their time and sharing of their knowledge when they taught us how to enjoy the water using kayaks, and were enthusiastic participants in our survey, showing their knowledge in the local sea life around Portballintrae.

A Thank You to our friends at the COAST Office (https://vimeo.com/365715749)

A Thank You to our friends at the COAST Office

So, this post is here to say a HUGE THANK YOU to the wonderful people at the COAST Office, for all of the amazing work that they do and all of their hard work in the past year.