We're incredibly proud to be able to announce that Fathoms Free have been awarded the King's Award for Voluntary Service! Equivalent to an MBE, this is the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK! The award celebrates exceptional contributions volunteers make to their local communities, and we're deeply humbled to have been honoured with it. This year has been particularly significant for Fathoms Free, marked by the launch of our dive boat Stingray. Refurbished

We're excited to share that Fathoms Free has been nominated as one of ten voluntary groups from Cornwall for the King's Award for Voluntary Service (KAVS) – the highest award given to volunteer-run groups across the UK. To mark the nomination, at the end of September, some of the team were invited to represent Fathoms Free at a special reception at County Hall, hosted by Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, Sir Edward Bolitho KCVO OBE and the Chairman of Cornwall Council, Councillor

What a fantastic first year for our RHIB Stingray, enabling ghost gear recovery dives and helping support other brilliant marine conservation organisations around Cornwall. Since her first recovery at Drakes Island in Plymouth Sound in the spring, Stingray's been busy responding to ghost gear reports around Cornwall's coastline and preventing further unnecessary death to marine life. Stingray and our volunteer skippers have also supported Cornwall Wildlife Trust  Seasearch ef

As part of the Marine Conservation Society  Great British Beach Clean 2025, Peninsula Sub Aqua Club (BSAC)   BSAC - British Sub-Aqua Club  teamed up with Fathoms Free  on Saturday morning to clean the beach at Sennen Cove. The hardy team of volunteers braved the poor weather and switched from scuba gear to raincoats and litter pickers to clear the beach of marine litter and debris. Amongst the litter cleared were the usual cans, plastic containers, broken up polystyrene food

Yesterday evening, the team at Fathoms Free  responded to a report from Cornwall Wildlife Trust   Marine Strandings Network  of an abandoned monofilament net just offshore from Maenporth Beach, near Falmouth. In addition to the initial report from CWT, we also received further reports via our reporting system and social media pages from staff at a local dive shop that one of their customers had found a net. This net was in the same location as one we recovered a few years ago

Some of the team have switched from drysuits to T-shirts and sunscreen this weekend, and are attending the Tropical Pressure Festival! Come to the Movements Area, learn about our marine conservation work and make yourself a souvenir with ghost gear! Our team is there to help guide you and help you make a bracelet, a key ring, or a lanyard! Give ghost gear a second life!

Fathoms Free recovered a huge monofilament net from beside Drakes Island in Plymouth Sound. Sadly it had trapped a lot of life

Stingray's Revival is completed! She's ready for action, and all the recent sea trials have been a great success. A huge thank you to everyone who supported the project. Every donation counted and contributed to this very special RIB.

End of March 2025 Fathoms Free volunteers assisted IFCA Cornwall and The Environment Agency to recover a large and deadly monofilament net from the river Tamar at Cremyll

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/stingray-revival Fathoms Free wants to revive and restore the Cornish dive boat Stingray we recently...

Sad collection of dead and dying fish and crustaceans trapped in a bunch of pots recovered from a Cornish beach

Exciting new boat project, meet Stingray a Cornish RHIB through and through that will allow us to collaborate more with other local groups

Nets, pots and rope recovered from Mounts Bay, Penzance

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We recovered a big tangle of monofilament net recovered just outside of Looe harbour that we found earlier in the year on a SeaSearch dive

Two dive sites visited off of Falmouth. Net recovered from one of them and a lost pot from the other

The last Saturday of July saw the team from Fathoms Free  respond to another report of ghost gear in Mounts Bay, Cornwall. Our friends at...

This time the team recovered tangled net, ropes and a collection of general litter from a popular Penzance wreck diving site

Our volunteers headed to the far south west of the County to recover ghost gear from the Runnel Stone reef

What do we do with the nets we recover? Read this article to learn more