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| Is it a boat, is it a truck? It's
a mussle harvester. |
Once on La Grande Route des Sablons, you now need to
proceed through a reasonably built-up area mostly consisting of private
individual homes on either side of you. This part of the road can be busy
and has no pavement, so take extra care if walking with small children,
buggies or wheelchairs.
After a few minutes a clear view of the sea will open
up just past the Borsalino Rocque restaurant. The area of the beach and
sea in front of you is part of Jersey's RAMSAR designated wetland which
stretches from Gorey Pier to the harbour area in St. Helier.
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| Mussels are grown on poles in the Royal
Bay of Grouville. |
As a Marine habitat, this is one of the most precious
sites in the world, the RAMSAR designation gving it internationally important
status. The area is also a productive one, as it is the home of much of
Jersey's Shellfish industry. At low tide you will be able to see the poles
on which mussles are grown and harvested. Ormers and Oysters are also
grown and harvested here.
Harvesting is performed by a semi-aquaeous vessel with
wheels, which uses a mechanical arm to collect mussles from the poles.
It can be seen working from the shoreline and moored in the bay when the
tide is high.
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| Le Hurel slipway. |
The view from Le Hurel can also serves as a good introduction
to the impressive tidal range of this area. At low tide a vast expanse
of sand and rocky reefs are exposed only to be recovered hours later.
Exploring this area of Jersey at low-tide is rewarding but has the potential
to be hazardous.
The tide can come in at around 10 kmph; a speed which
can quicky lead to walkers being cut off on sand banks and rocks. Before
walking below the high-tide mark you should consult the day's tide times
and inform someone where you are planning to go and the time of your return.
Today's tide times can be found on our Tides,
Sunrise & Sunset page.
It does not take a great deal of imagination to see that
a small rise in sea levels could have a disasterous impact on this part
of Jersey. At high tide the sea can reach the road at Le Hurel slip, so
global warming is a real threat here. The plain that you have walked through
so far is no more that 40 feet above sea level, meaning that in time the
land mass of Jersey could be considerably reduced by rising waters. But
this is nothing new.
Jersey was once part of the European land mass but was cut off by rising
waters around 6000 BC. Guernsey and Alderny has already become islands
between 7,500 and 8,000 BC. When the ice packs melted at the end of the
ice age, sea levels rose 40 metres. Evidence of this can be found in raised
beaches which exist in other parts of the island.
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