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This article by Peter Elbourne is about Horizon Seaweed's harvest site at Keiss and is our latest post on the coastline around Caithness. Keiss – rhymes with peace – has extensive rocky shores that make it ideal for harvesting seaweed, but it also has an interesting history.

The ideal foreshore for sustainable seaweed harvesting

Keiss is typical of much of the shoreline in Caithness. It is on the northern side of Sinclair's Bay, with the southern boundary of our harvest site beginning where the sand transitions to bedrock. The northern edge is at a geo - a narrow cliff inlet formed by millenia of wave action - that is difficult to pass on foot. This area of the site is more exposed and our harvesters target it for picking Atlantic wakame in the spring. Most of the 30 hectares of foreshore is very flat and relatively easy to cross. The distance between the high and low water of spring tides is as much as 200m - a long walk to reach kelp. Indeed, one of the most expansive sections is called Tang Head: a Norse name either deriving from point or seaweed. The shallow gradient means our harvesters need to take care after low water because the rising tide can rapidly cover a lot of ground. Read more about tides in our article covering this topic.