I didn’t expect this when I got up this morning.

They weren’t there when I went over the side on the way back from the Azores. The bottom was as clean as a whistle.

After a lot of Facebook discussion, Poole Harbour gets the blame. Apparently we’ve had so many really wet summers (until this year) that the nitrate fertilizers have been washed straight off the farmland into the rivers and estuaries, dramatically altering the eco-system. And, of course, Poole doesn’t get flushed out as thoroughly as an estuary.

It seems they’re goose barnacles. I’ll have to find a better place to scrape them off, though…