The beginning of Week 13 brought about another trip to London with all the marine interns from around the country. On Monday, we were back in the offices of The Crown Estate (TCE). We started the day off with a presentation skills workshop hosted by an external company called Laughology, which was both very useful for our upcoming presentations and enjoyable. The second half of the office day was spent in a meeting with some TCE policy and consents staff members, in which we discussed their roles, and TCE's policy and consents operations. It was great to get a better insight into exactly what working in this department looks like, and into TCE's activities in general. We spent the evening play spikeball (a very fun game, that quickly turned competitive amongst the interns!) in the sun, and then enjoying a pizza dinner together. Another great day hosted by TCE!

The next day Kiera and I, and the two Cumbria Wildlife Trust Marine Futures Interns, Alice and Ellena, headed to Orsted’s London base for the first time. We are the interns who have Orsted as a partner organisation involved in running our internship, so this was a great opportunity to visit their office and learn more about them. We began the day with a tour around the building, and then had a series of meetings that covered topics such as operations and maintenance, the kittiwake artificial nest compensation programme, Orsted’s involvement with the Isle of Man, and an overview of the construction phase of an offshore wind farm. Although we have had lots of contact with Orsted throughout the internship, it was so good to meet people in person and see their place of work - which has the most amazing view of London from the roof!

The rest of the week was comprised of continuing with our desk-based project work, and this carried on until Monday of the next week. Then, on Tuesday, Kiera and I had the privilege of attending Natural England’s annual offshore wind face-to-face event in Hull. This event was for all of Natural England offshore wind staff to meet up and spend time together, and as they are a partner involved in running the internship, and offshore wind has been one of the internship’s focuses, the two of us were very kindly invited along.

The first order of business was a trip to Spurn Point (where we collected seagrass during the summer). We were given the option of a few walking-based activities, and Kiera and I both chose fossil hunting on the beach! We both successfully found some; Kiera was especially delighted as these were the first fossils she has ever found!

After this, we headed back to Hull, where we were in for a real treat. That evening, we had dinner in The Deep, Hull’s amazing aquarium! Natural England hired it for dinner, and the whole of the main floor was open for us to walk around. The room that we ate in was the aquarium’s main room, and Kiera and I ate with a huge tank behind us, with fish, turtles, and even sharks swimming within a few feet of us. Surreal!

The next day, we headed to the Aura Innovation Centre, a state-of-the-art academic research facility just outside Hull. Firstly, a couple of staff members from Natural England gave some introductory talks about the organisation's involvement with offshore wind, then we had an hour engaging with the research and researchers within the centre. This included a building tour, including the warehouse research facility, an informative game that helped unpack some of the challenges presented by offshore wind projects, and finally some presentations led by PhD students on their research projects, all with a focus on offshore wind. The afternoon session was led by a few people from Orsted, who ran a very enjoyable challenge-based game. They are keen to keep the game a surprise for people who may play it in the future, so unfortunately for the blog we are bound to secrecy!

These couple of days were a real highlight for us, and although the activities were enjoyable and engaging, what really stood out was the warmth and friendliness of all the Natural England staff. We had lots of fascinating conversations, and felt very included. An amazing couple of weeks filled to the brim with partner involvement!

We have decided to include four weeks in this blog, as the two after the fortnight just described were a lot quieter, being spent working in the office preparing for upcoming halfway project presentations. We have been working very hard on our projects, and are keen to showcase our work to the partners and other interns!

Ed