Tales of local life
UNDER THE PIER
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The West Pier, Brighton. Some people feel it should be demolished, others still find its crumbling structure as beautiful as ever. However, there is a hidden world under the pier which underwater photographer and diving engineer SEAN CLARK has uncovered.
Everyone can see the pier is crumbling, but maybe not everyone realises what happens to the fallen debris once it slips below the waves.
This wreckage provides a potentially lethal hazard for the commercial divers working to save the pier but it also provides an ideal home for a vast array of marine life.
People who ask me about diving under the pier are usually surprised when I tell them how the sunlight filters through the water, revealing a vibrant and colourful underwater world.
The sea itself changes colour from silty grey after a storm to a ghostly green enriched by the sun- induced algal blooms.
To all intents and purposes, Brighton has its very own reef. Unfortunately, it is under such a dangerous structure that it cannot be visited.
It seems that the general public only expect to find sewage and syringes in our waters.
But the tangled iron under the West Pier provides an ideal mattress for dense clusters of mussels.
A far cry from what can be found in a restaurant, these simple bivalves take in nutrients and oxygen from the water which flows in through a frilled valve and is expelled through a smooth elliptical valve.
Bright orange common starfish feed on them, using their powerful arms to prise open the shells and feed on the soft flesh inside.
Many species of crab live in the crevices under the pier. Nearly every nook and cranny houses a crab of some kind.
The feisty and aggressive velvet swimming crab, with blood red eyes, can often be found on the open seabed. When approached, it stands angrily with its claws extended.
In the mating season, spider crabs in their thousands carpet the seabed in a swarming mass, looking like a scene from Indiana Jones.
Even in the relatively shallow water under the pier, colour is absorbed by the water, with reds being the first to disappear.
As you glide weightlessly over the seabed, seaweeds flow in the current, illuminated by torch and sunlight. These plants still need the sunlight for photosynthesis, just like their landbound counterparts, from the brown, leathery wracks to vibrant green sea lettuce, clinging to rocks and iron through raging storms. Looking up towards the surface, some weeds appear almost transparent as the sunlight flickers through.
This is all so different from the slimy brown tentacles that wrap around your legs when paddling in the sea as a child.
Nestled among these weeds are sponges and plumrose anemones in an array of colours, at first glance mottled red and then exploding with colour as the torch beam glances off the aerated surface.
Many species of anemone live under the pier, from the green and purple-tipped snakelock anemone to the impressive dahlia anemone, with its crimson stripes leading to its central orifice.
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Despite all this colour, some anemones are purest white, like living snowflakes with tentacles waving in the current, ever ready to catch food or attack other,intruding anemones.
Many species of fish and invertebrate thrive under the pier. The most common is the pouting or bib (a member of the cod family).
This inquisitive fish is striped silver and bronze with a small barb under its chin. It is often attracted by shiny objects and so can easily be lured for a closer inspection.
The cuttlefish is the chameleon of the pier, changing or pulsing colour to match its environment. This amazing creature can even change its skin texture to appear larger and more aggressive. Its complex green eyes watch for prey or predators.
The cuttlefish also has a rippling skirt around the full circumference of its body to enable movement. It naturally assumes divers are predators and uses its water jet propulsion to escape.
It can also squirt a cloud of dense ink to confuse, very similar to squid and octopus, of which it's a relative.
Most people would never realise what these creatures are like based on the bone, the white chalky thing people put in their birdcages.
If you are lucky, a common or a conger eel may glide past with stealth-like ease, its long, grey, sleek body and large black eyes looking for prey.
These eels usually prefer to hide in dark crevices and holes, waiting for passing prey. The fallen debris creates this environment perfectly.
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They hunt at night, which would be the ideal time to find these creatures.
The very debris itself is fascinating. It could be likened to diving on a Victorian shipwreck. Ornate cast iron scrollwork, serpent lanterns and artistically forged trusses are sometimes enhanced by colourful marine life clinging on to them.
Sometimes these items are unrecognisable under the sheer volume of barnacles, mussels, weed and anemones.
It is important to remember that just because items have fallen from the pier, they have not disappeared but simply found a new resting place.
Consequently, the sea then claims these items and they become another part of the reef.
Despite the sea's vastness and its amazing power, we should realise that it is a delicate habitat for billions of organisms, even in a relatively small area like the pier.
Every time rubbish is discarded into the sea, left on the beach or thrown from any pier, jetty etc, that fragile habitat becomes a little more polluted. We have a thriving marine environment less than 100 yards from our shoreline.
Although the West Pier should not be approached, a visit to Black Rock (East of Brighton Marina) at low tide will give a glimpse of some of the marine life.
Failing that, the Brighton Sealife Centre has an excellent display of most of the marine life this coastline has to offer.
It may well be worth the visit and l am sure you will be surprised at the marine life we have.
by Sean Clark
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