The last month has been jam-packed with activities and we’ve barely had a moment to sit down and reflect. The end of November saw us host a regional National Coasteering Charter forum, with around 20 South Devon coasteerers from a host of companies and educational establishments in attendance. We were also glad to welcome Sarah Greenslade from The Seal Project, to share some details about their work with the group. The group were also intending on heading out for a coasteer themselves following the meeting, however Storm Arwen put an end to that. 

Coasteering is one of our favourite and most popular activities at Reach Outdoors. This forum is a great place for Coasteering professionals to share best practice and help work together to promote and ensure safe delivery of Coasteering. South Devon’s reps for coasteering are Mark Agnew and Ashley Hone, who were both re-elected for another term. Earlier in November, a national meeting took place aiming to standardise the NCC Guide Training and Assessment process, so this was a chance for the changes to be fed down to the regional level. Location-specific topics including access and any accidents/incidents were shared across the group to ensure lessons are learned moving forward. A WhatsApp group was also created for sharing any site-specific risks that are recorded or any other relevant info for the local coasteering community.  

After the meeting Sarah Greenslade, a marine mammal medic and founder of The Seal Project charity based in Brixham, presented on their work. Conversations were had about how we can best operate alongside marine wildlife and reduce our impact on their environment, while still enjoying the activity. Sarah shared lots of information on seal identification and talked about some of the local seal personalities that we see day to day. We’ve definitely seen a few seals when we’ve been out and about on sessions. 

You can connect with The Seal Project on Facebook, Instagram or check out their website.  

For more information on the National Coasteering Charter, visit the website.