AN AMAZING OPPORTUNITY TO SEE A UNIQUE SECRET MARINE UNDERWORLD
WITHOUT DIVING! Where? Watch this video and read here below.

MARGATE is the quintessential seaside resort in the UK
and it is also home to a rather special watery wonder:
THE WALPOLE BAY POOL,
one of the biggest tidal pool in the country.
It is four acres with a swimming width
equivalent to 6 lengths of a 25-metre pool…
and it celebrated its 80th ANNIVERSARY.

WHAT IS A TIDAL POOL?
Tidal pools are rocky pools on the seashore
which are filled with seawater,
many of which exist as separate pools only at low tide.
They can be natural or man-made,
like the swimming pools designed by the Victorians
for salt-water bathing and exercise.

But… UNLIKE A TYPICAL TIDAL POOL,
where the water constantly rises and falls with the tide,
The Walpole Bay Pool was built to trap the water
within its concrete walls.
More than 7 million gallons of seawater,
contained both night and day,
creates an unusually stable environment for marine life to thrive.

CURIOSITY:
The Walpole Bay Tidal Pool is wild and free.
It is filled by the sea and surprisingly…
clean water coming out of its natural floor,
from pure fresh water springs arising from the beach.

THE CONSTRUCTION:
The Walpole Bay Tidal Pool was built in 1937
to make it possible for large numbers of people
to bathe in the sea at all states of the tides.
An Art-Deco-style concrete lift provided easy access
from the top of the cliff to the foreshore.
It was an ambitious engineering feat: walls on three sides
with the chalk beach used as a floor.
Each concrete block weighed about one ton
and had to be fixed into position by hand crane.
The work was carried out by day and night
to take advantage of every tide.

In England, only few were built as large
and survive as complete as the Walpole Bay Tidal Pool.
This structure has social historical interest
as it provided an improvement to sea bathing
at the period of the greatest popularity of the English seaside.

TIP:
AN AMAZING OPPORTUNITY TO SEE
A UNIQUE SECRET MARINE UNDERWORLD
WITHOUT DIVING!
Rather than diving to find deep-water species
you can simply walk onto the site.

WHEN? Once every 6 months,
The Walpole Bay swimming Pool gets completely drained
turning it into a giant rock pool
which reveals a secret subtidal world
that people can ever get to see.
A kind of wildlife that you would only ever see
in much deeper waters.

This amazing opportunity only happens
when the structure is emptied of water
for a routine structural inspection.
You will be able to walk around
what would normally be at 3-metre-deep dive.

While the pool is full,
it is used by the swimmers with no idea of what
wildlife treasures are lurking beneath them.
As the gates are opened and the water recedes,
a spectacular marine world is revealed
spanning more than four acres.
A world full of wildlife that would normally remain hidden
much further out to see.
As the pool is unaffected by the tides for most of the year
it creates a stable and protected environment
for marine life to flourish.
And when the annual structural check-up is completed,
the intertidal kingdom disappears under the waves
once again.

A perfect spot for both the wild swimmers and the wild life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Walpole Bay Pool…
80 years without showing it!

Sources:
– www.walpolebayswimmers.co.uk/history
– BBC, The One Show – 23 April 2015
– Wikipedia (tidal pool)

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Music (YouTube Audio Library):
Fortunate Note by Silent Partner

Filming and Editing:
Massimo Cozzi and Tania Bianchi