St Peter’s Pool, a wide bay lining the isthmus that connects mainland Orkney to its Deerness peninsula, doesn’t look like much to shout about. In comparison with Dingieshowe, the glamorous, silk-sand beach it backs on to, it presents as a muddy-looking flat made untidy with worm casts. I’ve never paid it much attention before.
But a few days ago, I joined three marine conservationists as they donned masks and wetsuits, and waded out into its shallows at 7am. They – Dr Esther Thomsen, Lyle Boyle and Nathan Tsang – are spending several weeks in our islands, snorkelling every day as part of the ambitious £2.4m Restoration Forth initiative that will collect Orkney seagrass seeds for relocation to the more damaged Firth of Forth, 200 miles to the south, to help its ailing ecosystem.
