The first week of September was mostly office based, which was ideal for us, as Ed and I had to create presentations for our project proposals. These were then circulated among the partners and relevant members of staff. We were given feedback that we could discuss and/or implement into our projects. I created a presentation for my smelt project, Ed created one for his circular economy project and we both created one for our native oyster project. Unfortunately, we were unable to create a project proposal for our joint natural capital project as we were still defining the scope of this project. With halfway presentations not far off we are just going to present what we have there instead of having a proposal and a halfway presentation.

We also had a meeting with a Geographic Information System (GIS) specialist from The Crown Estate; this involved a brief introduction to GIS and The Crown Estate’s mapping software as well as how The Crown Estate use this kind of programme. This was very exciting – I had done some GIS experience throughout university and really enjoyed it. There’s something exciting about creating a really informative map. We will be able to access GIS and The Crown Estates software during our internship to help with our projects. So, this could be the first of multiple GIS sessions.

The second week of September on the other hand was completely different we spent 3 days on the North East Coast with all of the other interns! These few days in Skegness, or Skegvegas as it is also known, were amazing. It was great to be with all the other interns again as we haven’t all been in the same place since the first week at The Crown Estates London office.

We were all meeting up for the national Wildlife Trust all staff Conference which was a virtual event this year. Tuesday morning was spent travelling to Skegness. Once we all arrived, we had a lovely buffet style lunch put on by Tammy, the head of conservation at Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust. Then we did some introductions; most of us already knew each other but there were also some new faces from the partner organisations, so it was great to meet them too. Then we attended a virtual conference session on “The next generation in Conservation” which was an ideal session for us as we all hope to be the next generation of conservationists! After some downtime and checking in at our hotels, we all met up for a drink and had a walk around Skegness with Tammy showing us the town where she grew up. We had dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant where the portions are huge!

Wednesday, we had a fairly relaxed start to the day so we all met up for a morning swim in North Sea. The weather was amazing and the water was great (much warmer than the air temperature – the walk to and from the water was the worst part). Then we met up with everyone and joined our second virtual meeting on “Inequalities and natural-based solutions”. We made some packed lunches and then travelled to Saltfleetby to visit Sea View Farm Nursery. It was great for Ed and I to revisit this site to see how far the construction has come in the 3 months we’ve been doing the internship.

Thursday was the last day of the trip and meant having an early start because we needed to get the train to Boston. We were going out on a boat trip to the “Centre of the Universe” otherwise known as The Wash. We arrived in Boston early so we had a nice breakfast near where we were getting the boat. Then we boarded the Boston Belle and set off down the River Witham and out into the Wash. We had great weather, great company, an incredible crew and a delicious buffet of food. To top it all off we saw some of the seal colony hauled out on the beach areas and some really cool birds. Ed and I both really enjoyed finally getting to go out and see The Wash. Its an incredible place and such an important natural feature of the UK. As we are both Marine Futures Interns for the North East Coast it feels only right that we get to experience this protected and iconic area of the North East Coast.

Kiera