2020/09/26 Andy Jackson Memorial Survey Loch Carron Maerl bed
In 2020 we celebrated Andy Jackson’s life and talent as a diver and cameraman with a survey in Loch Carron – a dive site that was very special to him. The Loch Carron survey is an ongoing study which we’ve named the Andy Jackson Memorial Survey. Our focus on this memorial survey was to honour Andy’s contribution to Wester Ross and the whole of the northwest where he loved to dive.
Bally Philp, of the North West Responsible Fishing Association (part of the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation) supplied his fishing boat and his brother Mark dived too to keep things within household bubbles. Dr Graham Saunders, Sue Scott and Lewis Press designed the survey. Sea Change Wester Ross provided the funding for the equipment and picnic donated to us by Jackie Daly Andy’s wife who had collected the money at his memorial service.
Our first objective was to map the Loch Carron maerl bed which we achieved using a floating GPS. We also established a new mearl transect on the mearl bed. A map of the maerl bed was produced by Graham Saunders who took the quadrat photographs to check the percentage of maerl. Graham kindly calculated the survey station GPS positions and then consolidated and tabulated all the data records. The new dimensions of the maerl bed were reported to Nature Scot who requested an ESRI Shapefile layer version. The mearl transect will give a good estimate of the proportion of live to dead maerl but a coarse visual estimate was also part of the GPS swim recording, too. We hope to repeat this annually and expand our enquiry looking at flame shell encroachment too. A great deal was achieved, and the weather was superb. Andy’s Bobtail squid even turned up to say hello.
Alongside our scientific exploration we had four dive friends of Andy’s who photographed the amazing habitats and species in the area of the Loch Carron north Strome pier, what’s now known as Andy’s Wall and Conservation Bay on the 26th and morning of the 27th.
