From a weekend camping with seagrass champions, to intertidal monitoring and community engagement events, we've really have been getting stuck into the marine conservation world in North Wales!

The internship took us on a trip to The Crown Estate offices in London and Cardiff where we met our fellow interns and learned all about how The Crown Estate operates.

After meeting with the partners, we got started on our individual projects. Amy has been tasked with finding an invasive non-native red alga that’s made its way to UK shores from the west Pacific, which has been an enjoyable process! From looking at the tides and exploring the shores of Anglesey, to getting very muddy and wet when out in the field looking for this invasive seaweed, it's definitely been an adventure! Amy will soon be writing a report of the distribution of this red alga for Natural Resources Wales (NRW). Additional individual projects for Amy include a carbon offsetting project with M-SParc, and an overview of the Tanfor/MCRP environmental project with Menter Môn: Morlais.

Siôn is also working on an invasive species project for NRW, investigating the legislation of foreign countries relating to limiting the spread of invasive species via the hulls of recreational boats. The goal is to ultimately apply some of the findings in a UK context. Additional individual projects for Siôn include surveying people’s opinions on shellfish as a food source for The Crown Estate, and designing an accelerator programme for supply chain companies involved in renewable energy development for M-SParc.

Our main project is underway, expanding on last year’s interns’ (Bron and Greg) project. With the help of The Crown Estate, we've created a survey to gain an understanding of people’s attitudes towards offshore renewable energy. The survey has been sent out to local businesses and organisations in the study area to determine if there’s a difference in views towards offshore energy development between predominantly Welsh-speaking and English-speaking communities. Once we've collected all the data, we'll write a short report and create some infographics to highlight our key findings. We’re looking forward to seeing the results!

Last month, we were reunited with our fellow interns again for the halfway presentations. This was an excellent way to work on our presentation skills and see what everyone else has been up to. The following day, all the interns and staff went for an adventure to Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s South Walney Nature Reserve. It was great to be out as a group of marine conservationists, learning about the nature reserve, the local oyster hatchery, and the windfarms of Morecambe Bay. We even spotted a group of seals beached on the sandbank!

The next few months will see us continue with our project work, take the reins on some of the Trust’s Shoresearch sessions, and begin preparing for our final presentations in December. No doubt it will fly past. After all, time flies when you’re having fun!