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Bringing fun with our Ocean Connection Programme

4 minute read

Ffion Mitchell

Ffion Mitchell, HYYM Project Lead

21 Oct 2024

Learn more about the exciting events we delivered as part of our Ocean Connection Programme, including sand sculpting, watersports sessions, and of course, beach cleans.

This July, we launched our Ocean Connection Programme as part of the Hiraeth Y Yn Mor (HYYM) project. Within two months, our team delivered 34 activities! These activities ranged from nature-based to indoor and virtual, and followed one of three themes: learning, taking action, or wellness.

Whether visiting a breeding colony of Little Terns, creating sand sculptures, discovering marine life on Welsh shores or doing watersports, the Programme offered communities the chance to connect with the sea, learn more about our underwater world, and be inspired to take ocean-positive action.

Little Tern Colony Visits
Before the public launch of the Ocean Connection Programme, we took the One Ocean Forum (our local community steering group) to see the only breeding colony of Little Terns in all of Wales. We wanted to show these wonderful volunteers our appreciation for all the hard work they do by offering them the first activity of the Programme and delivering it alongside a Forum member, who is from the Denbighshire County Council Countryside Service, made it even more special.

During the visit, we learnt how Little Terns travel from West Africa to Prestatyn each year to breed – and some Forum members were lucky enough to see fledglings through the scope!

Following the success of our visit, we arranged another one for the public a few weeks later, while the Little Tern fledglings were still present – and these attendees were able to see fledglings through the scope too. This visit was a great way for us to meet lots of new people from the project area, share our new co-designed leaflets and spread the word about upcoming events and activities.

Little tern colony visit

Credit: Ciara Taylor

Alongside our One Ocean Forum members, Tony and Claudia, we also arranged a bird watching visit to Gronant Sands SSI in partnership with the Rotary Club, who guided the group around the site of special scientific interest and introduced attendees the range of bird life in the area.

Evening session with Young Carers

We met 12 amazing young carers at our Young Carers group session in Abergele, where we talked about marine conservation, drew postcards about what the ocean means to each of us, learned how to identify shells and other items from the beach, and about Wales’ marine wildlife.

This was a brilliant session, with the young people showing enthusiasm, inquisitiveness, creativity and sharing interesting stories about their experiences of their local coast and sea.

Young carers session

Credit: Ciara Taylor

Beach cleans

Throughout July and August, we delivered eight beach cleans in Prestatyn, Rhyl and Kinmel Bay. Alongside over 80 volunteers, we made a great collective effort to clean up the beaches in the HYYM project area, in total collecting over 1,300 items of litter, weighing 58.5kg. We also ran three Beachwatch Organiser Training sessions, where we empowered 13 volunteers to organise and run their own beach cleans.

One of our beach cleans was carried out with local charity Blossom and Bloom, which provides support for mothers who are expecting or have young children. It was wonderful to see around 40 parents and babies out on the beach getting involved in litter picking, with many parents saying it was their first time bringing their child down to the beach.

HYYM beach clean

Credit: Ciara Taylor

It was great to be involved in this activity and help parents and children connect with their local environment and spend meaningful time out in nature.

Community fairs

We attended the Prestatyn Carnival, which brought together different parts of the community in Prestatyn. Two of our amazing volunteers, Nat and Paul, came along and joined us in engaging with community members about the project, and the Ffrith Fun Day was another great opportunity to meet a range of community members and groups.

Between the two events we spoke to nearly 200 people, some of whom went on to attend future HYYM events.

  • HYYM Ffrith Fun Day

    Credit: Ffion Mitchell

  • community fair HYYM

    Credit: Ffion Mitchell

Other activities

Over Summer we hosted four sand sculpting sessions with a mixture of families, adults and children. Attendees were encouraged to get creative and design their own sand sculptures – we had beautiful depictions of seabirds, mermaids, jellyfish, shark egg cases and more.

sand sculpting

Credit: Ciara Taylor

These activities were designed in partnership with our One Ocean Forum and intended to support people to get creative and enjoy time at the beach that was just focussed on looking after their own wellbeing.

We also ran Seashore Safari sessions, both online via social media livestream, and in person. The livestream Seashore Safari was the first of its kind at the Marine Conservation Society and allowed us to bring the coast to people from the comfort of their own homes in real time.

A wide range of people attended, highlighting that Seashore Safaris appeal to people of all ages and experience levels. We were lucky enough to find three different types of shark and skate egg cases, live green shore crabs and to have sightings of some Wales’ special sea birds such as oyster catchers.

seashore safari find HYYM

Credit: Daniel Price

Marram grass transplanting

We once again partnered with our fantastic colleague Claudia from Denbighshire County Council Countryside Service to transplant healthy marram grass to bare areas of sand dunes to support the development of the sand dune system at Horton’s Nose Nature Reserve in Rhyl Harbour.

We took sections of large healthy marram grass plants and planted them in bare patches of sand. This was another great day of volunteering, where attendees started with no understanding of the transplanting process and ended up being pros.

marram grass planting HYYM

Credit: Ciara Taylor

Watersports session

The One Ocean Forum suggested we create a loyalty scheme for HYYM activities where participants unlock a special activity when they take part in an Ocean Connection Programme from each of our three themes. This offers an opportunity to take part in different types of marine conservation work, and allows us to thank our volunteers for getting involved.

Our first special activity was a watersports session with Mor Watersports at Colwyn Bay, where we were lucky enough to try surfing, kayaking, giant stand up paddle boarding and swimming. For some of the attendees, this was their first ever experience in the Welsh sea, so we were delighted to be able to provide this.

watersports session HYYM

Credit: Ciara Taylor

The launch of our Ocean Connection Programme was a brilliant success, and we were proud to be involved in helping Welsh communities engage and connect with all our coastline has to offer.

The Ocean Connection Programme will continue to run through to January, with a shift to more indoor and virtual activities as we come into Autumn and Winter. We’ll keep running public events, as well as private events with community groups, schools and local businesses.

This project is funded by the Nature Networks Programme and is being delivered by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, on behalf of the Welsh Government.

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